Is SE aware that they release hard content to be sold by players?

[Faladrin]

Or you could be really radical, but the game would likely die fast.

1. Eliminate the economy. Remove all trading, the AH, everything.
2. Make crafting reflect that there is no trading. Skill ups should be increased drastically. Farming for mats for "common" stuff should be much easier. Farming mats for much of the better stuff also made easier and everything solo'able.
3. Make all content doable with a single 6 party consisting of one real player and 5 trusts. Make the trusts available more diverse in how they function such that some content would need (or really really benefit from) using specific trusts or combinations of trusts. The game should make determining the correct trust combinations easier to figure out.
4. Make all the upgrade bullcrap adjusted to the idea that players would all have to farm all their own materials for everything. If they want something to take a certain amount of time fine, but it needs to reflect the changes above.
5. Watch as people "finish" the game and then leave.

Honestly all online games who try to have "real" economies have these issues. The only solution is to design your game to not have a "real" economy. Real economies suck, just like in real life.

[xiozen]

Merc'ing is a thing because it is expressly permitted under the logic of "Roleplaying as a mercenary" and the official line is that is perfectly fine so long as any/all compensation/fees/etc are being done entirely in-game. It's only a no-no if real world money is directly involved. I don't merc. I don't like merc'ing. I accept that it's not going away, and fight it my own way by running my own linkshell to help others get stuff done and get to the point where they can run the endgame content themselves w/o needing to leech anymore.

This.

I also don't merc but I can see many people utilizing this service because of "reasons"... so while its definitely not for everyone. I and since it isn't against the ToS... yes, it happens alot. There are still plenty of linkshells willing to help others the normal, intended way... group up and get the content done. You don't have to participate in the merc activity to enjoy the game.

[Faladrin]

Perhaps a more on topic/helpful post.

I will likely pay for mercing in the future. Although I feel like I have enough time to play, it isn't usually in large blocks. I have a linkshell and I think they'd be totally willing to help me do stuff, and I'm totally willing to help them in return, but my playstyle make that hard. I can't regularly schedule time to do stuff in a group. I usually play while doing other stuff and so regularly need to step away and attend to other things in my house/work. Given that I find it hard to ask my linkshell to do stuff that will take a serious amount of time as I don't know when I can pay them back in kind.

The time sinks which need lots of contiguous time dedicated are just going to be hard for me, not because I am a bad player, but because of real life keeping me from doing it right. Mercing will let me "fix" that. My preferred way to complete this game as much as possible is solo, but a group of people who have the same goal would be 2nd... just that doesn't work for me. So mercing will be the fall back.

[Pixela]

If someone wants to trade their time and expertise for gil that's upto them, nothing wrong with that.

This is like complaining because someone pays a plumber to fix their leaking pipe instead of learning and fixing it themself.

[Kalimairo]

If someone wants to trade their time and expertise for gil that's upto them, nothing wrong with that.

This is like complaining because someone pays a plumber to fix their leaking pipe instead of learning and fixing it themself.

No its like paying a person to play a video game for you.

[Pixela]

No its like paying a person to play a video game for you.

No it's about paying someone to play the parts of the game you don't want to, so you can do the other parts you find fun.

[Sirmarki]

If someone wants to trade their time and expertise for gil that's upto them, nothing wrong with that.

Time? As in getting JP for someone else? No time there, they bot.
Expertise? How's that determined? On how many third party scripts they are running?

Expertise is rare these days.

Look at the known multi-boxing Youtubers. They are doing content, as if they are a pro, but without that third party software that they are openly showing the use of, they wouldn't be able to do 95% of that content.

[Zehira]

RMT/BOT is never intended for a discussion in the first place. Here is what happened to FFXIV.

Oct 10) https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...9e31ceadf71794

Oct 17) https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...49961d9a91dcb1

What they really mean they will only permaban any RMTs and suspend cheaters. It may be hard on the budget for FFXI but still sounds like a good plan nonetheless.

[Pixela]

Time? As in getting JP for someone else? No time there, they bot.
Expertise? How's that determined? On how many third party scripts they are running?

Expertise is rare these days.

Look at the known multi-boxing Youtubers. They are doing content, as if they are a pro, but without that third party software that they are openly showing the use of, they wouldn't be able to do 95% of that content.

The difference between them and you is they have fun and you complain about what other people are doing.

[Sirmarki]

The difference between them and you is they have fun and you complain about what other people are doing.

I complain when it has a direct affect on me (I mean had, I quit because of it).
Let's see how 'expert' they are in vanilla FFXI.