Price Controls Needed...No?

[Caspian]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

You have obscured me in each of your responses... No opinion is being dismissed. I welcome all views...no but...simply said once again vet players have different, not wrong, opinions on change discusions. which is why i chose this venue to pose the question. waiting for something to be horribly broken is why the U.S. economy, and world, is now facing tough issues...the player run economy is fine in my eye but adjustments are needed...


Comments in {brackets}
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No not quite what i'm proposing...price fixing is what I see keep popping up but that implies a set price nothing else. I said a price MINIMUM that the price can not fall below to eliminate under-cutting and allow the flow of gil to be given in the order of items placed in AH to sell. now I did mention a stipend being added in according to craft level let's keep that in mind for the discusion as well.

So the ffxi economy is now broken or near broken? I haven't played in several months but I somehow doubt it suddenly did a 180 and everything went to hell in a handbasket. Is it "broken" because there's about to be rioting in Whitegate's streets or is it "broken" because you don't like it because its costing you money to skill up cooking?
You said comments in brackets to Ellipses' post. Did I miss the part where you commented on that? The filter at work may have cut out that part of your post, but both he and Lunaryn made very good arguments for why things are the way they are and why what you have suggested would not work.
Not only that but you also said in your first post:

and a profit margin added in dependent on the syth level.

So its not just that you want to break even gil-wise on your way to 100 cooking, its that you want to make money doing it, despite the point Lunaryn made about skilling up having worth in and of itself.
I may be wrong, but I get the impression you've come from another game where leveling crafts was relatively painless and cheap. FFXI is not one of those games. I currently play WoW and while there are a few crafts that require a decent monetary investment to hit cap, most are very cheap and will easily pay for themselves. Even with those that cost money, money is not a hard commodity to come by in the game. Its not meant to be. They're inherently different games on many levels. Personally, I enjoy having a more difficult time skilling a craft and be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment when I do reach level cap, rather than having it handed to me with little work and no monetary investment.

[BLADEnCURSE]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Dismissing opinions that differ from your own based on something unrelated to the original post simply shows your refusal to think beyond the end of your own nose.

Changing the very core something is rarely a good idea unless that core is horribly broken. The player run economy is not.

I have Alchemy at lvl78 and WW at 60. I level crafts very very slowly; I refuse to take losses on the way because I can't afford it. If you are taking losses, make better decisions as to what you skill up on.

You have obscured me in each of your responses... No opinion is being dismissed. I welcome all views...no but...simply said once again vet players have different, not wrong, opinions on change discusions. which is why i chose this venue to pose the question. waiting for something to be horribly broken is why the U.S. economy, and world, is now facing tough issues...the player run economy is fine in my eye but adjustments are needed...

Change can also be awful.

So what do you think would happen if they implemented this? Somehow players would continue buying all those suddenly-more-expensive crafted goods at the same rate they're buying them now? {buying is not the problem-production costs are} Would the increased income break even across crafts {if they did it for all I can't see why not} , so that you'd still be able to afford all the things you need to buy?{ can't see it affecting the price negetivly to point of more excess than it is now} Where is all this gil going to come from to keep things buying and selling at the same rate? {the rate is player determined so player gil} Increased NPC prices and mob drops and all those other things that are so easy for RMT to exploit? {a little jumbled here-but set low pricing would eliminate the market cornering of monopolized drops by setting lox standard pricing} How do you handle the massive inflation that would generate? infaltion=increased pricing-i'm speaking about stadard low pricing for items that would normaly sell for less than they are worth-killing a beginner before he began}

Or do we just accept the massive stagnation of the player economy caused by sudden spikes in prices without anything to balance that out?

I'm not trying to argue this idea would never work (I don't think it would, but for the sake of argument...). But I don't think it could be successfully implemented on its own, without other changes to balance the economy. What accompanying changes do you propose?

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Here's a very simple, anyone can get it, idea of what you propose. Price fix so I can make more money and then others will see that people have more money and raise prices which screws the people who don't craft to make money especially new players which drives them away from the game. (Run on sentence ftw!)

No not quite what i'm proposing...price fixing is what I see keep popping up but that implies a set price nothing else. I said a price MINIMUM that the price can not fall below to eliminate under-cutting and allow the flow of gil to be given in the order of items placed in AH to sell. now I did mention a stipend being added in according to craft level let's keep that in mind for the discusion as well.

[Mhurron]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

How is SE setting the low price (NPC sell) and high price (NPC buy) not doing the same thing?

NPC cost and AH cost have nothing to do with each other and really they never have. Case in point, cost of distilled water.

[Feba]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

How is SE setting the low price (NPC sell) and high price (NPC buy) not doing the same thing? Even in the rare cases where players DO leave this open to exploitation, it generally works itself out very quickly.

Again, not saying that screwing with the AH is a good idea. Just that it's not really different from how things are now.

[Mhurron]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Changing an AH item price doesn't change the way the economy works either

Yes it does. It removes all supply and demand controls (has the OP thought that maybe no one want's what he's selling?) and pretty much all player control over it.

This is a player run economy. The players set the highs and lows. This is the way it was designed to work. SE setting the AH price is a fundamental change of that.

[Feba]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Changing an AH item price doesn't change the way the economy works either; it just changes how it works out. And yes, items are often found elsewhere, but disturbing the NPC seller still has an effect-- even if it just causes people to go out and hunt or HELM for it, that changes it. There's also the "NPCs have it cheaper than AH and Bazaars" thing.

[Mhurron]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

How the hell is SE changing an item's price not a direct effect.

Such a change does not effect the way the economy works and most likely, NPC's are not the only way of getting that item.

[Feba]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

How the hell is SE changing an item's price not a direct effect? Just because they don't physically change numbers on the AH doesn't mean their actions don't have the same effect.

SE lowers the drop rate or raises NPC price of a crafting material, crafters are either going to decrease their profits (and thus have less money to spend themselves), or increase their costs.

I'm not defending this idea, it is not a good one. But that doesn't mean there's some level of economic interference that's alright, and another that's bad. There are just good and bad ways of doing it, not good or bad amounts.

[Ameroth]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Keep in mind that every time SE adjusts drop rates, item prices, item stacking/storage, or even changes mob positions they're going to have some effect on the economy.

Indirect effects on the economy in forms of in/decreasing the rarity of drops or mobs, and situations along those lines. This differs from SE blatantly setting fixed limits and caps on goods put up for auction to influence the economy directly.

Besides, most people won't argue with SE removing 13B gil from the entire game everytime they ban RMT. Suddenly, the small amounts of gil I do have became one iota more valuable than the day before.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Hmmmmm. I see so those mainly agaist the idea are older , veteran, players. Indeed any change in a system that is well known is going to make bete players, or from the start players, very twitcy. But change can be good...

Change can be good, but not this change. Putting in these price floors might seem like a good way to help crafters. But it hurts buyers by artifically raising prices (artificially meaning not through natural market forces). When prices go up, buyers will be less able to purchase even the "affordable" NQ items. If you have trouble finding buyers for your NQ yields, it doesn't help you that there is now a profitable price floor.

Also, every crafter also is a buyer. Unless you have 8 characters and every craft leveled to 100, you're not self sufficient. So you're going to have to buy crafted items from someone at some point. These artificial price floors are going to adversely affect you as much, if not more than, they help you.

[Ameroth]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

I see so those mainly agaist the idea are older , veteran, players.

And apparently those for this idea (ie. you) are lazy, new-ish players who want things handed out to them for little or no cost. The ideas you propose will not help anyone for very long. Like others have said, setting a minimum price for synthed items would be difficult, time-consuming, and would ultimately unbalance the player-economy.

Don't get all pissy because your idea to save the world really wasn't as thought out as you intended it to be.

[Feba]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Tampering with the economy isn't really the problem. Keep in mind that every time SE adjusts drop rates, item prices, item stacking/storage, or even changes mob positions they're going to have some effect on the economy. For that matter, same with banning RMT, although it's not unreasonable to argue that's more an issue of correcting an anomaly than it is tampering something to someone's benefit, which has given us obvious deflation advantages.

The problem is just bad tampering.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Hmmmmm. I see so those mainly agaist the idea are older , veteran, players.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Ahhhhh the irony! How does it feel guys to get the "you say that because you are old" speech!? Welcome to my world!

You are right. The veteran players KNOW because they've been around a lot longer than you have and seen what an unbalanced economy can do. What you propose would create balance issues and throw everything even more out of wack. Here's a very simple, anyone can get it, idea of what you propose. Price fix so I can make more money and then others will see that people have more money and raise prices which screws the people who don't craft to make money especially new players which drives them away from the game. (Run on sentence ftw!)

If you think this economy is bad, you should have seen it before. This economy is actually 50 times better than what we had before and suggesting we start messing with the balance of it is going to prickle the veterans that were there to see it. MMO's take effort. Things aren't handed to you so you can play it like an offline RPG. They want you to stick mega hours into the game for a reason........it makes them money. The longer you play the more you pay, so get used to the pace. (NEW YORK CITY! )

[Ellipses]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Hmmmmm. I see so those mainly agaist the idea are older , veteran, players. Indeed any change in a system that is well known is going to make bete players, or from the start players, very twitcy. But change can be good...

Change can also be awful.

So what do you think would happen if they implemented this? Somehow players would continue buying all those suddenly-more-expensive crafted goods at the same rate they're buying them now? Would the increased income break even across crafts, so that you'd still be able to afford all the things you need to buy? Where is all this gil going to come from to keep things buying and selling at the same rate? Increased NPC prices and mob drops and all those other things that are so easy for RMT to exploit? How do you handle the massive inflation that would generate?

Or do we just accept the massive stagnation of the player economy caused by sudden spikes in prices without anything to balance that out?

I'm not trying to argue this idea would never work (I don't think it would, but for the sake of argument...). But I don't think it could be successfully implemented on its own, without other changes to balance the economy. What accompanying changes do you propose?

[Mhurron]

Re: Price Controls Needed...No?

Hmmmmm. I see so those mainly agaist the idea are older , veteran, players. Indeed any change in a system that is well known is going to make bete players, or from the start players, very twitcy. But change can be good...

Dismissing opinions that differ from your own based on something unrelated to the original post simply shows your refusal to think beyond the end of your own nose.

Changing the very core something is rarely a good idea unless that core is horribly broken. The player run economy is not.

I have Alchemy at lvl78 and WW at 60. I level crafts very very slowly; I refuse to take losses on the way because I can't afford it. If you are taking losses, make better decisions as to what you skill up on.