What about making all currently r/e monster drops sellable on the auction house

[Dale]

Merc = item drops, one of the party members drops and you invite the buyer when they have traded you the gil in order to lot. They do nothing aside from wait for the invite after the monster is dead.

True.

But that's still a lot more hassle then simply going to the auction house and choosing which item you want to buy. Because you have to find a group willing to do the content for you and are willing to sell the item - assuming that it drops and they win the fight to begin with. You also have to trust that the other members involved keep to their end of the bargain. A dubious prospect on any online video game. So mercs or no mercs - keeping these items from being sold on the auction house do contribute toward the goal of incentivizing players to group up and do the content themselves, which is probably SE's intent. So I still see a point in doing it.

[Stompa]

It would cause two main negative changes, which combined could make the game less enjoyable for a lot of people and lead to further loss of subs.

Firstly, it would make gil the number one thing in the game again, just as we were finding a happy balance where gil is still useful but not the lynchpin of everything in the world. And this would of course make RMT very serious again, just as they were becoming marginalised.

So in Aby, camps where today you could simply go farm your Ra-Ex shells/hides whatever, in fairly empty camp areas, you would see the sub-boss pop sites locked down 24/7 just like some of the best camps in Dyna are currently locked down 24/7. Because it is in their interest to stop you being able to farm. If you can not farm, you are forced to buy. This is a vicious spiral. Currently these Ra-ex items are quite easy to farm, and not really worth Mercing, so the balance is perfect. That balance would be upset and broken if the items could be just mindlessly farmed 24/7 by RMT drones and sold in stacks on the AH.

Good luck getting into Ambuscade, if the Ra-ex capes and armours were being sold for millions on the AH.

It would increase prices on SoA trigger items, popset items, entry items, as those items were vacuumed-up by full-time farming teams again. Etc.

And the second effect is that it would further alienate players from the actual Player Community game, give them another reason to never team up or join LS or try to make friends. Just buy the gear, hang round town feeling lonely in the gear they bought, then get bored and sad and /QuitGame. This is what happened to a lot of fans, the last time RMT ruled the world, they felt they were not wanted in the game, they only represented a sum of gil. And it would happen again, this time way more uncontrolled because smaller Police Force now lol.

[Gankfest]

Obviously you didn't play before EX Rare items were added to the game to combat RMT. If you think kids are crying now... You should of seen it back in the day. -_-