Empty Auction-house Conundrum, and Suggestions

[Oakrest]

The recent amalgamation of the auction houses was a welcome improvement in that it effectively increased the overall stock of items/equipment/etc that is accessible to the player. However, it seems there's still a deficiency in how the auction house (AH) works in that many lower-to-mid level items are almost always out of stock. I realize this is largely due to the majority of the player base no longer consuming lower level content, and therefore don't the lower level items intended for it. Over time, these items get sold to npc's for petty Gil, or just tossed to make room - most players don't need em'.

That said, we need to realize that there are still new players joining/starting, and that the lack of equipment options on the AH can be a huge deterrent from getting 'provoked' by the game (read: engaged). Don't forget, we too may someday want to revisit lower level content but can't really experience it unless say, we have some r/x stuff in advance. Even something like Maat's cap - which is still considered an end-game-like achievement - is tricky if you're expecting to gear your level 66+ jobs from the AH (sure, if they're all 99 no problem - but my point stands).

I don't have a solution for this yet, but here are some suggestions to consider:

• Provide incentives/rewards to players who place items on the auctionhouse that have 0 quantity for X weeks.
• Amalgamate AH items across all servers. This probably is my least favorite solution I've come up with.
• Use a computer-generated system to look for items in a level range that are out of stock and automatically add that item to the AH.
• Allow lower-to-mid level items to be placed on the auctionhouse for much longer than 7 days. Note: I would like this be done across the board, but perhaps this is a compromise. Having some dynamic dates [if possible to implement] would make for a much more interesting and active AH, while also helping to solve the lack of stock.
• Connect the AH stock for lower-to-mid level items to random effect drops (directly from the monster and/or from chests that spawn). In other words, low-to-mid level items that have existed as 0 stock on the AH for extended perious of time have a chance to drop from certain monsters and/or chests. This is probably my personal favorite solution but also likely involves the most amount of programming time.

Again, these are only suggestions. I'm hoping it might spark a conversation. What do you guys think about all this?

[RAIST]

A lot of the problem simply sparked from supply/demand issues. People simply weren't willing to pay what the crafters felt the items were worth, so they stopped putting them up, and for a lot of those items that balance has not been restored. I ran into this a bit when I started up bonecraft, and instead opted for items I could simply farm or find at NPC's and then synth/desynth/resynth or concentrated on consumables I would use personally (like arrowheads) so I didn't have to keep relisting things several times only to wind up NPC'ing it in the end.

<sarcasm>Would be nice if there was some way to find crafters and ask them directly for help in crafting things....</sarcasm>

But seriously, people either need to get more vocal in-game with what they need (shouts/tells/etc.), or may need to simply take up crafting themselves perhaps? After all.. that is more or less how it all started in the first place. One thing they could (or rather should) work on is tweaking crafting/skillup issues, like skillup rates or breaks with losses (especially breaks when grossly over cap, like breaking on mithkabobs with 90-something skill...seriously, SE?). This might create an incentive for more people to craft again....maybe?

[FrankReynolds]

Add them all to NPCs.

[Fynlar]

With so much of the lower level game simply being "skippable" nowadays, there is really nothing that could be done here that will fix the problem. As stated, it's simple supply and demand, and the demand is way too low.

Connect the AH stock for lower-to-mid level items to random effect drops (directly from the monster and/or from chests that spawn). In other words, low-to-mid level items that have existed as 0 stock on the AH for extended perious of time have a chance to drop from certain monsters and/or chests. This is probably my personal favorite solution but also likely involves the most amount of programming time.

This basically already exists. It's just that when people get the drops, they probably don't bother placing them on the AH because they know they won't sell.

[Merton9999]

Besides inventory space problems, this is the primary reason I haven't leveled my remaining jobs, despite wanting to try them out. After ten years and with so many other good games available now, I just don't have the tolerance for tracking down low level gear, and I haven't convinced myself that is perfectly fine to be totally gimp until level 75+ yet, especially if I'm soloing.

If they could make crafting quicker and more engaging I'd vote for that first. Doubting that would happen, I'd vote for simply making all these low and mid level items available at NPCs. Blah blah easy-mode whine whine but at this point I couldn't give a flying crap. I just want to experience some of the jobs I never leveled without just switching on my console to another game out of annoyance.

[Mirage]

Here's a solution using mechanics that are already in the game, but has been abandoned by the development team:

Conquest points! There is a lot of leveling gear you can get from the conquest guards, but with the invention of FoV and GoV pages, which encourages targeting the weakest possible enemies, people don't gain conquest points at nearly a fast enough rate to be able to utilize this to gear up their characters on their way to 75 and beyond.

If Field/Grounds of valor page completions granted CP in accordance with the exp you gain from them, there would be enough CP for people to get a lot of the low-mid level gear from the gate guards.

-edit-
This lack of gear for new players has been brought up several times before, and I've suggested something like this most of those times. However, Square Enix does seem to simply not care about new players at all. I mean sure, they made leveling for them easy, but in probably the most boring way they possibly could have, by limiting all the best exp spots to a handful dungeons that grow old and boring very fast. I personally would have preferred 4x exp from all mobs to all this -of valor stuff.

And here I thought they wanted new players to get a good first impression so that they would be more likely to stay. Guess they must know something I don't know.

The book support is nice though, but I use that more for non-leveling than I do for leveling.

[Sarick]

The lower level gear issue should be resolved when or if new high level craft items need them.

Rewards are collecting craft items and converting them into guild points. What if we could have a random item unique to each player (outside guild pattern) that could be used for credits whatever guild you're currently at even if you aren't in that guild.

I once proposed an alteration to the auction house where If an item had 0 on something a player could still place a bid on the item in a gil amount creating a pre-bid. If an ongoing pre-bid was up it'd turn the ITEM text red showing it's wanted. If someone posted an item for more then or equal to the ongoing pre-bid it would instantly get mailed to the bidders mail using the money placed in to pre-bid. If on the ongoing pre-bid was to low and someone posted the item for more it's color would still stay red but other players could bid on it as normal.

This would do three things.

1. It would allow people to pre-bid on items using their 7 slots, after X days the money would return to the player.
2. It would allow others to know something is wanted in advance just not know the asking price in the pre-bid
3. It would help people understand what others are willing to pay for something. If an item is up and the pre-bid is to low either the bidder is asking to little or the seller is asking to much.

Since these pre-bids would use up slot spaces and cost a posting fee people would be less likely to post for wanted items at like 1 gil.

[Mirage]

As an additional fix, I would suggest that low-level NM drops are greatly increased, so that if a new player finds himself short on some gear, he would actually not waste his time by tracking the NM that drops it down. Any "common" NM below level 60 should probably drop their "good" loot at 75% or more, and additionally, maximum respawn timers of these should be decreased.

[Sparthos]

Factor in stats of gear for play as a monster such that you have to "level" your monster by buying gear and you've just created a new demand for lowbie trash.

Until then the AH will forever remain a museum.

[Camate]

Greetings,

The development team understands the current situation where it is difficult to obtain equipment at the lower levels. The comment below from Producer Akihiko Matsui outlines a couple of adjustments that will be made in the November version update to address this issue.

Matsui here.

Thanks for all the feedback.

In order to eliminate the situation where it is difficult to obtain low to mid-level equipment, we will be making adjustments in the November version update.

• Treasure Casket adjustments
  As one method to obtain low to mid-level equipment, there are Treasure Caskets that appear when defeating monsters in the field, but with the current balance of the game players are leveling quicker than the pace in which they are obtaining equipment, and we will be making adjustments to this.
  
  • The rate in which brown Treasure Caskets appear when defeating monsters will be increased.
  • Body equipment will be added and the overall appearance rate of equipment items will be increased when successfully opening the Treasure Casket.
  • Additionally, we will be making it easier to open caskets by increasing the unlocking attempts to 5-6 tried for all areas.
  We’d like to balance this so that you can open Treasure Caskets while gaining experience points, level up, and naturally procure equipment as you move to the next area.

• Adjustments to the spawn rates and drop rates for certain notorious monsters
  We will be adjusting the spawn rates for notorious monsters that appear in original areas making it easier to encounter them.
  
  Additionally, we will be adjusting the drop rates for the items these notorious monsters drop, and this will alleviate the difficulty obtaining equipment and quest items.

We’ve received a lot of feedback about adjusting NPC prices, but just as many of you have already pointed out, this could result in the mass production of materials through desynthesis and various other problems. Also, we feel that searching for the equipment you want is an important game element, and we would like to make adjustments so that you can easily obtain equipment through your own efforts.

If after we make adjustments there are still levels that have not been covered properly, we will look into having this equipment sold by NPCs.