FFXI, The Anti-Gil

[Asplode]

So after reading tons of posts about gilsellers, gilbuyers, gil problems, etc... It occurs to me that perhaps SE is taking the wrong route to dealing with this...

It seems that to combat inflation, NM hogging, gilselling, whatever have you, SE "nerfs" things. Such as selling prices to NPCs, valuable drops from NMs, valuable drops in general, so on and so forth.

What if they did exactly the opposite and made gil much easier to obtain?

1) If gil was easy to get, there would be less/no gil buyers.
2) If nobody bought gil, there would be less/no gil sellers.

FFXI has got to be one of the most difficult games to make money in that I've ever played. And I've played quite a few, even other MMORPGs, and the in game currency was much easier to obtain.

The only problem I could see is inflation, but this would most likely be offset by the ease of obtaining the extra gil required to buy whatever necessary.

Just a thought, not trying to beat a dead horse.

 

[ForteTeppo]

Just a thought, not trying to beat a dead horse.

o .o he wants to see the picture with the dead horse again

 

[Zhaoyun]

*in Frow voice [for those of you who don't get out much shes from Austin Powers]* BRING IN THE HORSE! *end Frow voice* :roll:

 

[Atrbiohazard]

EQ2's money is harder to get. My friend has two characters capped and still doesn't have enough money to buy a horse (40 platinum) that everyone expects you to get at level 40.

That's a good idea. Too bad it will probably never happen. -.-

 

[Squee]

Hmm

Yah, I dont know if anyone honestly beleives that SquareEnix is honestly trying to do anything to fix all of these problems. Lets review a few of them...

Botting: Complain about someone botting and they "Will look into the matter". I read on allakazham post a coupled days ago about how on one server a LS has been botting LoO for the last year or so and SE does nothing about it.

Gil Sellers: Complain about a group monopolizing the zone and after enough time they will finally "Temp Ban" that group only to have them come back and do the same thing. Although every once in a while they will throw them in jail for stalling tactics, more or less nothing major ever happens against these dudes. On the Quatz server you have all seen Kuftal Tunnel and Amemit fiascos...

Packet Sniffers: Someone actually posted on here that the GMs said that Packet Sniffing was perfectly legal because it is a passive action that does not directly effect the game. Ailia and Co have eben Packet Sniffing for almost a year now. Who was it that posted that they claimed Nidhogg and such for 200+ straight days?

MPK: One out of a hundred instances will actually see any punishment.


Claiming the mob before it even spawns: We have seen it in several places where so and so starts casting on such and such 1-2 seconds before the mob even spawns. We will see a lot more of this in the future and I HIGHLY doubt the GMs or SquareEnix in general give a damn.

Those are just a couple examples of what I can remember from previous posts and watching stuff unfold in actual game play. If you think FFXI will be around this time next year, you are sadly mistaken. Well, at the very least it will not have the customer base that is has now. Too many people will be pissed that EVERY single NM that has a 200k drop or more will be botted, with packet sniffer, and with claim before it even spawns. Who knows if it will be the Chinese GIl Sellers who get the monopoly or if it will be the JPN, but in the end, North Americans will ultimately lose out.

 

[Bajaratt]

*in Frow voice [for those of you who don't get out much shes from Austin Powers]* BRING IN THE HORSE! *end Frow voice* :roll:

Actually, I believe it's spelled Frau, since she's German.

But anyways, making gil even easier to obtain doesn't seem like it would solve the problem of the prices. If I can normally farm say 20k an hour, but now it's up to around 60k because they made it easier, then everyone can do the same. Now everyone has a lot more money in a lot less time, so they would be able to pay even more for items and would probably drive up the prices even more.

The gil sellers wouldn't leave, because now they can get that much more gil to sell, possibly driving down their RMT prices and causing more people to buy gil/buy more gil.

Now, increasing prices might not effect a high level character, but it would really hurt a low level on their first job, since they don't have the means to farm huge amounts at their levels.

 

[Rorschach]

I was thinking about ways SE could make the economy better for everyone. And i was wondering, what if they made it so that people couldnt put up items on the AH for more then a set amount of gil on a case by case basis.

For example: Peacock Charm 12 mil it would still be high due to the spawn rate and drop rate of the mob and item, but you wouldnt see it ever being say 20 mil which its up to now.

Emp Pin: 500k maybe even less. Right now its up to somewhere near 800k from what I heard.

Fire Crystals: 2.5k like they origionally were. I dont think I have to go into why an item that can drop like water from the right low lvl mobs should be about 4k a stack.

Now, its not like there wont be some compotition, you can just underbit the other sellers out there, and get it faster. We all do it. Its just that you cant jack up the price when we see that there isnt any other items up. Sure there would be some confusion or problems at the very begining of the implemetation, but its not like that has stopped SE before.

Raising the AH price hasnt really stopped anything, infact all it did was make the seller put the items up for more to compensate for the inflated charge. From what i heard, they nerfed fishing almost to the point where its pointless to waste the time to do it.

SE isnt afraid to be looked at in a bad light, atleast from their updates thats the impression I get. So why not implement this.

How do you guys think that it would help or hurt the economy as we know it.

 

[Squee]

I was thinking about ways SE could make the economy better for everyone. And i was wondering, what if they made it so that people couldnt put up items on the AH for more then a set amount of gil on a case by case basis.

I also thought about this a long time ago. I laughed at myself when I realized how smart this would be on SquareEnix part. Oh no, don't get me wrong. This will not solve the problem by any means. Instead you will get more mules shouting in Jeuno or baazar in Jeuno than ever before trying to sell stuff for what they feel is the right 'rip-off' price. More mules means more $$$ for SE. /sigh, good thought though.

 

[Bajaratt]

Fire Crystals: 2.5k like they origionally were. I dont think I have to go into why an item that can drop like water from the right low lvl mobs should be about 4k a stack.

Actually, I believe that fire crystals were around 4k a stack or so right before the NA release, or that's what I've heard anyways.

 

[Rolyat]

Sometimes I wonder how many people have taken an economics class. Making gil harder or easier to get is not going to make gil sellers go away. If I can make 10 gil a day... the gil sellers can sell 100 gil for 50 bucks (or whatever price). If I can make 10 mil gil a day... the gil sellers can sell 100 mil gil for 50 bucks. The difficulty in making gil only affects the base value of 1 gil.

Somebody please find a mmorpg that does not have their currency being sold for real money and explain how the game maker achieved this. Then try to apply it to FFXI. Games that not many people play does not count due to the fact that there isn't a big enough market of buyers to make selling viable.

Honestly... I'm interested since this is my first mmorpg.

 

[cokenn]

1) If gil was easy to get, there would be less/no gil buyers.

If they made it easier to get the prices on things would simply go up, changing nothing.

2) If nobody bought gil, there would be less/no gil sellers.

There will always be gil buyers and sellers, no matter what. Some people are just lazy (gil buyers), and others sell gil for a living (gil buyers).



Honestly, there is no way to get rid of gil selling and gil buying. I know that Ultima Online, the first MMO (i think), has always had gold selling and whatnot; yet then again it's a really unstable game. But it's just an example of how, since they still have the gold selling and buying going on, that there is really no end to it.

 

[reddogneo]

I agree with bajaratt in a way makin gill easier to get would help in the beginning but after a while the prices would raise again on very expensive items. But what its looking like is theres no way wo solve the inflation through makin gill easier to get. The way to solve these problems is for EVERYONE to stop being so greedy. Im not gonna lie if I get a pin and I know its 300k normally and I see a chance to sell it for 600k ill say Ill do it only cuz its so hard to get money in this game. But in doing that you only keep this inflation going so my/everyone greed keeps this problem going. The only way is for everyone so boycot anything thats seriously inflated but in doing that your serverly gimping yourself. Now I highly doubt anyone wants to gimp there self but this is where the problem lies we would need a large amount of ppl to boycot at the same time, so when they put them in for these extremely inflated price they wount sell and theyll waste tons of money on the AH fees. Then eventually theyll just start lowering the price and itll stay more consistant. But alot of ppl would have to put in work to get these items through nm/hnm hunting constantly and swallow your 20% chance on getting a claim. NA players are getting screwed at both sides of this fight we have a small hope for fixing it but remember its a very small hope.

 

[Rorschach]

This will not solve the problem by any means. Instead you will get more mules shouting in Jeuno or baazar in Jeuno than ever before trying to sell stuff for what they feel is the right 'rip-off' price. More mules means more $$$ for SE. /sigh, good thought though.

Ok then what if you made it so that you couldnt sell things in bazaar mode for higher then what they are in the AH? Wouldnt that stop the problem b4 it started?

 

[cokenn]

Ok then what if you made it so that you couldnt sell things in bazaar mode for higher then what they are in the AH? Wouldnt that stop the problem b4 it started?

No, don't do that! Then we couldn't have all the people with small items like roses and whatnot for 99,999,999gil!!!

 

[reddogneo]

WoW solves this problem pretty will they have that soulbinding system on alot of the higher lvl kick ass gear so you have to be there to get you cant but/trade it. Havin something like that applied to FF would dramaticly change the game and getting the best gear would intell of you going ot get it your self. Meaning gill buyer/sellers would have no reason to monopolize certain nm/hnm except for being a complete asshole(basicly charging you to get the claim or they just claim and throw away the item everytime they get it which is completely pointless). Thats why I like WoW abit more than this game they have alot of ways to keep ppl from screwing other ppl over.

I also have couple ideas for getting gill easier. Let say FF makes a wanted poster up in all the major cities with a certain NM/HNM on it in a certain region and offer an unclarified reward for it. Everytime someone gets it youll get a message that <whatever nm/hnm on wanted poster has been caught> then a new poster would pop with a different NM/HNM in a different area. Also make it so the lvl of the of the mob on the wanted poster is randomized so sometimes you can kill it yourself and sometimes youll need a full party or alliance(which offer far greater rewards for everyone in the pt). So if you want you can just bounty hunt for money all day. Not to mention some of these wanted poster NM/HNMs will drop random valuable items anything from a emperior hairpin to a peacock charm to normal shitty gear you dont need.


My other idea is having a bank that give you quest for stright up money and sometimes alot. So lets say you want a to get 100k youll get a quest and a farly difficult quest todo to get it(the more money you want the harder the quest gets). But here the trick to that idea there only 3 quest available to get the 100k then that amount is permanantly closed to you so it will require that you spend that money wisly cuz you can only do it few times. The amounts will be preset at 5k, 10k, 25k, 50k, 100k, 300, 600k, 1million. Like I said the more money you want the harder the quest is. The smaller amout you can repeat a few times more that the high amounts and the 1million will be a one time thing.


This way they can make makin gill slightly easier, yes it will be easier to sellers to get gill to but it will be easier for you to get gill to. With those solutions im mind it will make it easier to get some rare gear and get some xtra money. tell me what yall thing

 

[Rorschach]

Saddly that would be the price we would have to pay for affordable gear in the AH and bazaars. I know I would be willing to sacrifice the ablilty to put a pebble in my bazaar for 99,999,999 to be able to buy an emp pin for 500k. And i'm sure a lot of other people would too.

 

[Pascal]

Re: Hmm

This whole problem is a catch 22, a lot of people get on here and complain that prices are too high (which they are), but on the same note the same people get on here and complain about people under cutting prices. Price under cutting is the only way to bring prices back down. If Fire Crystals are selling for 4k a stack and you sell your Fire Crystals for 4k a stack then you are lending to the problem. If you think 4k a stack is too high, and then when you sell Fire Crystals you should sell them for 2.5k or what ever you think is fair, but everyone wants to have there cake and eat it too. They want to be able to sell there items at a high price, but want to buy there items as cheap as possible. You can’t have it both ways.

Claiming the mob before it even spawns: We have seen it in several places where so and so starts casting on such and such 1-2 seconds before the mob even spawns. We will see a lot more of this in the future and I HIGHLY doubt the GMs or SquareEnix in general give a damn.

Actually SE did do something about this many months back. They started spawning monsters clamed for several seconds before releasing them to be attacked by players. Everyone protested this and it was removed shortly after.

 

[Raesvelg]

Heheh.... I still find one of my anti-inflation ideas amusing.

Buy gil.






Yep, buy gil. Then spend it all at NPCs. Level a craft, put tons of NPC-only sale items on the AH, whatever. Just don't allow the gil to go back into the economy.

 

[Mortanius]

Agreed, taking mass amounts of gil out of circulation would help fix the problem. I'm still curious as to how we got so much of it going around. Even with the high AH tax and inflated chocobo prices, how is more (and not just a little more, but a LOT more) gil coming in than going out of the system? Where is it coming from?

 

[Kurgon]

Money coming into the system is from several sources.

Beastmen kills - wilth each one that died there is more gil in the world.

Fishing - Assuming you are catching things that sell to NPC for more than the cost of bait there is more money being generated into the economy. Ex. My friend yesterday caught a rusty bucket with his 3 gil tiny worm. He said the bucket sold to the NPC for 48 gil and he didn't even loose his bait. So on that one cast 48 gil were generated into the economy.

Quest that just take time and no monetary investment.

Server shrinks - Doesn't add more money per se but when players leave and they give everything away you have the same amount of money spread amongst fewer people.

The money sinks aren't enough. Housing fees, weapon degregation (either you have to replace a broken weapon/armor/item or spend money in the upkeep of what you have), ect are none existant.

I also read a post somewhere on here that said Gil-Sellers will transfer money from one server to another for a % fee. I'm not quit sure how that works. :?