No more guild holidays.

If standard merchants can be open 24/8, guild shops should be too. It's not like they are actually taking a break--they still stand there even when the shop is closed.

While it may not have been the intention, things like guild holidays end up being almost a punishment for logging in at the "wrong" time of day.

Player: Oh, I have an hour to kill. I think I'll log in and work on my guild points.

Merchant: Sorry, we're closed... holiday... yadda yadda....

Player: Graaahhh! Dammit!

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Originally Posted by Camiie

While it may not have been the intention, things like guild holidays end up being almost a punishment for logging in at the "wrong" time of day.

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More like:

Player: Oh, I have an hour to kill. I think I'll log in and work on my guild points.

Merchant: Welcome to the Guild Shop!

Player: Okay, I'd like to get a-

Merchant: Sorry, we're closed. We're open from X to X.

Player: That's okay, I can wait twenty minutes, I'll mule and get the other supplies I needed anyways.

Player: Okay I'm back, I'd like to get a-

Merchant: Sorry, we're closed... holiday... yadda yadda....

Player changes job to Ninja and explodes.

The First Law of XI crafting: The guild shop will be closed at the precise time you happen to need something from it.


Buy yeah, get rid of that, and get rid of the stock limitations. The variable prices are ok though.

I've got no problem with the guilds as they are. They sell cheap and buy high. For that, I can wait a bit.

7/11's, they aren't.

Actually, they sell high and buy cheap. But if it saves me the trouble of traveling to 6 different places to get the ingredients to make something, it's worth it. And I'm glad you have no problem with the current setup. But I don't see how keeping them open all the time could negatively impact you in any way, so why poo-poo the idea?

No more guild holidays and also stop things going out of stock, as someone else you can keep the higher price range on items if they are selling at a high rate just stop them going compeltly out of stock.

As a newer crafter myself, I approve these messages. I would pursue crafting more if I didn't have to worry about these things.

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Originally Posted by Direct

No more guild holidays and also stop things going out of stock, as someone else you can keep the higher price range on items if they are selling at a high rate just stop them going compeltly out of stock.

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Shop holidays are silly unless they have another purpose where items are unlimited stock or lowest prices. There is a game I play that has special discount days where everything is 10-30% off. This would be a much better use for the guild holidays.

This is fine but if they do this it'll mean that when the item would normally be out of stock it would continue to increase in price indefinitely until it reached a point where players would no longer buy it. This would balance high demand items and create a nice gil sink. It might make it possible to still purchase items that people CAMP till they're out of stock MINNOWS anyone? If the systems was designed to increase indefinitely people would be more inclined to craft them or to from choose money vs. demand.

As far as I know, the guild holidays have a purpose of letting the guild shop replenish its stocks further by having a day where people can't buy any. The reason the items are limited in the first place is so that the guild shops don't destroy the market for certain items obtianed in other areas.

That being said, the holidays are stupid and the limited hours are stupid and they really ought to redesign the whole thing.

Crafting has always turn me off for reasons like this. And I agree, can completely ruin your plans to get into it at certain time's. It's already going to cost a player a large fortune to become a master crafter across the board, or just good enough at it to flip a gil piece in it. At least make it more reasonable to get into it when ever you feel like it. Instead of the sorry were closed bs.

The reason we don't have 24-7 Guild shops is to keep some semblance of an economy viable. Nearly everything at one is available in some other form, and even at times at prices that make the going rates shameful extortion by comparison. FFXI rewards people who learn them, and hey- if that means I don't have twenty zillion people sitting there grinding the crafter count through the roof, that's all the fewer people competing for the Gil I'm earning.

Limited supplies matter. Unlimited ones (or effectively so) mean prices remain flat and there's zero reason for people (including newbies) to go out there and make some money, whether it's HELM, farming lower-level monsters for goodies, or knowing your way around desynthesis. In short, making them open 24-7 just puts a big ol' dent in the economy, and the heck with that.

And if there's something you can get in quantity at a guild shop and have trouble finding it? I probably know where to look instead- and I'd be happy to tell people, too. There's a reason lightning crystals are the handiest thing known to most crafters... :)

In the game's prime, that was true. Now, there are a hell of a lot fewer newbies out there farming low level stuff, so the AH is not as viable for a lot of things as it used to be. Sure, you can go farm them yourself, but the opportunity cost of your time usually wipes out the profit you're getting from crafting.

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Originally Posted by yankeestom

In the game's prime, that was true. Now, there are a hell of a lot fewer newbies out there farming low level stuff, so the AH is not as viable for a lot of things as it used to be. Sure, you can go farm them yourself, but the opportunity cost of your time usually wipes out the profit you're getting from crafting.

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In which case, it's time to look for another recipe if you want profit...which you should be doing anyway. That's how you make money in crafting. Nothing should be auto-profit every time, even though thanks to how things work, there ARE such recipes.

Heck, to this day you can walk up to a vendor with a stack of fire crystals and 0 skill in GS, turn around, and AH the results for about 20K profit. Rinse and repeat. The entire process of understanding cost and profit is the core of a good crafter- and if you're feeling skunked with your craft because you couldn't walk into your guild shop for a few hours, something has gone horribly wrong.

The only thing 24-7 Guild-Marts would produce is fewer profitable recipes. That's what happens when supply piles up over demand and as a given process becomes easier. Then people will complain as RMT swallow those recipes whole that "it's too tough to make a profit crafting".

I don't want people sitting there being able to go 1-70+ on a craft without moving an inch, given nothing but gil and crystals. Heck, given 24-7 shops, you could go into the 80's on some crafts in just such a fashion, assuming the guild shops were open and supplied continually. The limited supplies make this a roadblock to seeing tons of adept+ crafters materializing without visible effort and crashing markets left, right and forward.

I always tell people when this kinda thread comes up: "Think about what RMT can do with the same options." If you haven't, well...

I'm not asking for all ingredients to be available at the guild shop. I'm asking that those that are available to be accessible when I need them rather than having to wait an hour just because I logged in at the wrong time of day.

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Originally Posted by yankeestom

I'm not asking for all ingredients to be available at the guild shop.

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I am, at least any for the express purpose of leveling a craft. This would keep the cost of leveling low, and encourage more people to level a craft.

I support removing guild holidays.

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Originally Posted by Trisscar

I am, at least any for the express purpose of leveling a craft. This would keep the cost of leveling low, and encourage more people to level a craft.

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Then everyone has a craft to 100 and they become a dime a dozen, and prices of various items will go down (Items that are harder to get because not as many people can make them more than because the materials are rare)

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does potentially reduce the benefit of a craft when crafters are more ubigquitous due to ease of leveling- it is the annoyance of fully leveling a craft that deters most people from doing it.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

It is the annoyance of fully leveling a craft that deters most people from doing it.

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It would be good if the annoyance was removed, people would be more self-sufficient then.

I fail to see how this would be anything but a good thing for the community at large.

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It would be good if the annoyance was removed, people would be more self-sufficient then.

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No, it wouldn't. it's totally fine that not everybody is a crafter. Not everyone enjoys crafting. If the annoyance was removed, they'd feel obligated to do it when they don't enjoy it.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

No, it wouldn't. it's totally fine that not everybody is a crafter. Not everyone enjoys crafting. If the annoyance was removed, they'd feel obligated to do it when they don't enjoy it.

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No. People who don't want to craft now probably aren't going to craft even if leveling crafts becomes reasonable. Nothing will change that, at all.

Don't believe me?

Final Fantasy XIV has a crafting level system that's cheap, easy and reasonable. 1-50 can be done in the same amount of time it takes to level any job in Final Fantasy XI, probably less in many cases.

And yet many people still don't have crafting leveled there. It would much the same here, as well.

On the topic of guilds, they should sell everything all the time, and the stock and price of items should not be influenced by how many people bought the previous day. Way back when, people would camp the WW guild to buy the one stack of arrowwood lumber. Or camp the cloth guild for silk thread or wamoura cocoons. It was stupid then and it is stupid now. It's also idiotic that after a maintenance, prices are maxed out and all the additional items for sale (from people selling to guild) become unavailable again.

Making more items available from npcs would also help to remove gil from circulation. I'm not sure I have enough scorn to direct at the crafting guild vendors but rest assured I am scowling very hard in Japan's general direction.

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Originally Posted by detlef

On the topic of guilds, they should sell everything all the time, and the stock and price of items should not be influenced by how many people bought the previous day. Way back when, people would camp the WW guild to buy the one stack of arrowwood lumber. Or camp the cloth guild for silk thread or wamoura cocoons. It was stupid then and it is stupid now. It's also idiotic that after a maintenance, prices are maxed out and all the additional items for sale (from people selling to guild) become unavailable again.

Making more items available from npcs would also help to remove gil from circulation. I'm not sure I have enough scorn to direct at the crafting guild vendors but rest assured I am scowling very hard in Japan's general direction.

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Hahahahahahaha....no.

They camped that limit because it was easy profit compared to the normal flow of supplies. Make it unlimited and that places a hard limit on pricing, because you generally won't be able to sell higher than the basic guild prices. Unlimited supply = capped demand prices. Bye bye HELM entirely at that point for most items. RMT would be able to literally flood the game on a huge pile of crafted items that right now actually make crafting a reasonable and profitable endeavour. It'd also require a repricing on tons of items that unlimited supply = infinite sell-to-NPC chains- which your RMT would exploit the nth degree in the process as well.

If you'd LIKE to kick the FFXI economy so hard in the crystals it sings soprano...by all means, implement something like that. I'm old enough to remember what happens when RMT crafters get their hands on a supply chain.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Hahahahahahaha....no.

They camped that limit because it was easy profit compared to the normal flow of supplies. Make it unlimited and that places a hard limit on pricing, because you generally won't be able to sell higher than the basic guild prices.

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Yes, I'm aware that it may have been worth camping the guild to resell on AH in the past. What specific items are you talking about in the last sentence of your quote? Are you worried that people will not be able to sell iron ingots on the AH anymore?

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Originally Posted by Rustic

Bye bye HELM entirely at that point for most items. RMT would be able to literally flood the game on a huge pile of crafted items that right now actually make crafting a reasonable and profitable endeavour.

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Do people still HELM? I mean really, do they? The only things I can think of that are worth HELMing for are things like dragonfruit and imperial tea leaves. That is, things that aren't sold at the guild anyway. You must be talking strictly about low-level crafting right? Low-level crafting has always been and always will be reasonably profitable because high level crafters have better things to do with their time. Also, most people will not bother hitting up the guild if a given item is reasonably priced on the AH, even if it means paying a little more.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

It'd also require a repricing on tons of items that unlimited supply = infinite sell-to-NPC chains- which your RMT would exploit the nth degree in the process as well.

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Are you referring to something specific here? Do you mind giving an example?

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Originally Posted by Rustic

If you'd LIKE to kick the FFXI economy so hard in the crystals it sings soprano...by all means, implement something like that. I'm old enough to remember what happens when RMT crafters get their hands on a supply chain.

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You have a pretty extreme outlook over something that is relatively minor. If this is what kills FFXI's economy (and not rusty caps, tavnazia npcs, hakuryu, or blinkers), then I will eat my hat and perhaps a second hat.

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Originally Posted by detlef

Yes, I'm aware that it may have been worth camping the guild to resell on AH in the past. What specific items are you talking about in the last sentence of your quote? Are you worried that people will not be able to sell iron ingots on the AH anymore?

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Silk thread, saruta cotton, etc. etc.

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Do people still HELM? I mean really, do they? The only things I can think of that are worth HELMing for are things like dragonfruit and imperial tea leaves. That is, things that aren't sold at the guild anyway. You must be talking strictly about low-level crafting right? Low-level crafting has always been and always will be reasonably profitable because high level crafters have better things to do with their time. Also, most people will not bother hitting up the guild if a given item is reasonably priced on the AH, even if it means paying a little more.

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I walked into Zerhun Mines the other day with a few stacks (4) of pickaxes in field gear (gloves and boots).

I came out with about 80K in iron and brass ingots (and a single silver ingot). Not bad for zero risk and something a newbie can do, enough in fact to get most newbies squarely on their feet gearwise. Kiss that sorta thing goodbye if you simply make the guild an unlimited fount of ore and such. Is it L99 money? Of course not. Is it one good way to get a new player on their feet? Absolutely. Kicking more and more of those out of the system isn't helpful.

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Are you referring to something specific here? Do you mind giving an example?

You have a pretty extreme outlook over something that is relatively minor. If this is what kills FFXI's economy (and not rusty caps, tavnazia npcs, hakuryu, or blinkers), then I will eat my hat and perhaps a second hat.

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The classic example was, of all things, carrot broth- which S-E promptly trimmed down the resale on. Basically, take plentiful supplies, make items with high resale value to NPCs, rinse, repeat.

A really simple (and relatively minor) example is green ribbons. Costs a bit less than 1800G to make from guild supplies, NPCs for about 2200. Oh, and while you're at it, RMT would also end up with the market on the sneak/invis ninja tools, since all the materials are available at the guild shop. Just for starters.

Buy from NPC -> make item -> sell to NPC at profit = RMT Gil generator. That's been a fact since I first played in 2003. S-E's been good about stomping on those of late, but the sheer number of options that an unlimited guild supply chain would produce would be a genuine pain to the FFXI economy, and I don't want that.

Saruta cotton and silk thread are good examples, but back in the day you could only buy a single saruta cotton at max guild price (I don't quite recall about the silk threads). Certainly, that is not a good situation for anybody. As it is, people can make essentially unlimited amounts of Velvet Cloth which is still incredibly profitable for the effort. I think the current system hurts players.

Regarding Zeruhn Mines, I think the only worthwhile ores are iron and zinc. Zinc isn't sold at guilds (I'm not sure if they buy/sell zinc after you sell to them first) so that will always be profitable. Iron ore is already sold from a regular npc in addition to the guild npcs. Silver ore is almost always available readily from the GS guild at about 315 gil a pop. So I don't see how your mining expedition would be affected by increasing guild npc stock.

Green Ribbons are something I'm aware of but hadn't thought of. Yes, you could get a little thing going there if you had the time and patience (and synthesis time has been cut down drastically so even more so). SE has been good at extinguishing this kind of RMT activity as of late, but I do think when they do it also has a negative impact on legitimate players.

Overall, I would argue that RMT isn't much of an issue these days. Yeah, they've gotten increasingly desperate, selling gil for $8.99 in unsolicited /tells. But aside from that annoyance, you're very unlikely to have your day impacted in any way by RMT.

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Originally Posted by detlef

Saruta cotton and silk thread are good examples, but back in the day you could only buy a single saruta cotton at max guild price (I don't quite recall about the silk threads). Certainly, that is not a good situation for anybody. As it is, people can make essentially unlimited amounts of Velvet Cloth which is still incredibly profitable for the effort. I think the current system hurts players.

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Again, it'll crush profit to the nth degree by making the supplies unlimited. You'll just see people sitting there pumping out velvet and silk cloth until heck freezes over. Supply will finally really meet demand- as it is, silk is a gathered resource rather than a simply bought one, which means there's actually economy related to it.

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Regarding Zeruhn Mines, I think the only worthwhile ores are iron and zinc. Zinc isn't sold at guilds (I'm not sure if they buy/sell zinc after you sell to them first) so that will always be profitable. Iron ore is already sold from a regular npc in addition to the guild npcs. Silver ore is almost always available readily from the GS guild at about 315 gil a pop. So I don't see how your mining expedition would be affected by increasing guild npc stock.

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Depends on whether they allow sales of all the items the guild CAN sell. If you sell the guild zinc ore, it'll allow people to buy it- which means if they make guild shops sell unlimited items...that would likely include zinc ore.

At that point, the market for zinc ore goes in the toilet.

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Green Ribbons are something I'm aware of but hadn't thought of. Yes, you could get a little thing going there if you had the time and patience (and synthesis time has been cut down drastically so even more so). SE has been good at extinguishing this kind of RMT activity as of late, but I do think when they do it also has a negative impact on legitimate players.

Overall, I would argue that RMT isn't much of an issue these days. Yeah, they've gotten increasingly desperate, selling gil for $8.99 in unsolicited /tells. But aside from that annoyance, you're very unlikely to have your day impacted in any way by RMT.

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The reason RMT aren't as effective now is because S-E's not letting stuff like gil-making machines stay around (blinkers being the latest such entity crushed). Ribbons = RMT gil generator, given unlimited funds. The end result would be ribbons being crushed in sale price- and hey, more player harm that way.

Just to clarify, this thread was not intended to suggest changes in what or how much of an item a guild will have in stock. It is about guild shops being closed for no good reason. Limited stock I can understand; waiting an hour for the stupid shop to open just so I can find out that there's no stock is just a waste of my time and patience.

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Originally Posted by Rustic

The reason RMT aren't as effective now is because S-E's not letting stuff like gil-making machines stay around (blinkers being the latest such entity crushed). Ribbons = RMT gil generator, given unlimited funds. The end result would be ribbons being crushed in sale price- and hey, more player harm that way.

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What really kills RMT is lessening the demand for gil. If players don't feel the "need" to buy it, then the RMT can farm/bot/exploit till their fingers are worn down to bloody nubs and it won't matter.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

What really kills RMT is lessening the demand for gil. If players don't feel the "need" to buy it, then the RMT can farm/bot/exploit till their fingers are worn down to bloody nubs and it won't matter.

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Heh, I forget a lot of people don't remember how RMT generated one of the hyperinflation surges in FFXI.

Back in the day, stuff like rusty cap fishbotting and the like gave RMT a considerable pool of Gil to work with, beyond what they were selling to players. Some black-hearted genius in their ranks got the diabolical idea to start manipulating market prices in the AH with it on a massive scale. They'd buy-sell-buy everything in sight rapid-fire by passing it between mules, blanking out lower prices and replacing them with artificially inflated ones- I can remember at one point as a clothcrafter sitting there buying spider webs at thousands less than someone buying them at the same time- when the price history at the start was thousands lower than what the RMTer was paying. The stock depleted, and on a whim, I started trying to buy at 1 Gil.

Periodically, I'd actually get one- so the price history looked like 6000-6000-6000-1-6000-6000-6000-1...until they realized I was sitting there hosing the deal and they stopped. An hour later, they'd wiped the price history clear again and had the sales showing at the inflated rate. I started keeping an eye on other stuff. Sure enough, the same pattern emerged elsewhere, repeatedly.

Multiply that effort by nearly every high-speed-selling item they could find, and you saw a steady increase in the "cost of living"...which after a short while, regular players helped push along. They needed stuff, things were more expensive, so THEY were marking their prices higher too! After all, most people had no idea there was a concerted effort to cause AH inflation. The result: buying Gil became much more tempting, and more of it.

Sure enough, the price of RMT Gil also started to creep up in advertisements being spammed at you by random accounts, including ones they'd hijack from legit players on occasion. It was the straw that broke the camel's back- S-E's efforts to stomp on RMT became much bigger shortly afterwards, resulting in the anti-RMT team and procedures we know today.

All from having enough Gil handy from RMT-style processing that sold straight to vendors.

There was a time in FFXI when RMT was all but out of business. Can you tell me when that time was? I'll give you a hint. SE deemed that time a failure.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

There was a time in FFXI when RMT was all but out of business. Can you tell me when that time was? I'll give you a hint. SE deemed that time a failure.

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That's because RMT's are inherently parasitical. If the game is doing well, RMTs are at their worst trying to exploit it for profit. If the game isn't doing well, RMTs tend to wither away for lack of a market, even if they're still looking for ways to get the most out of what's left.

Ideally, RMT is trying hard and getting it's butt kicked by S-E's countermeasures, indicating the game is popular but they've got the RMT effects under control.

We definitely know where you are all coming from with this request, but we currently don't have any plans to change or remove the guild holidays. Guild holidays were created to give Vana'diel a real-world vibe and for that reason, our NPCs need a break. (Sorry they hang out at work. Apparently they don't have much else to do...)

As for increasing guild item stock or removing the "sellout" mechanic completely, this was done to prevent users from cornering the market and we don't have any plans to remove it.

Why remove JP midnight from some quest-lines and missions? Were those too not designed for a real-world vibe?

Would it be possible to make the NPCs despawn when the shops are closed for a more real-world vibe?

Close 30 minutes early when business is slow for a real world vibe.

No but seriously don't implement that.

I don't play this game for a 'real-world vibe'. I play it to have fun. Fun does not include running to a guild to purchase crafting materials, only to find yourself completely out of luck for the next 1+ hours because the store is 'closed'.

Its really unfortunate to hear that removing guild holidays isn't even going to be considered.

I thought this was final fantasy.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

We definitely know where you are all coming from with this request, but we currently don't have any plans to change or remove the guild holidays. Guild holidays were created to give Vana'diel a real-world vibe and for that reason, our NPCs need a break. (Sorry they hang out at work. Apparently they don't have much else to do...)

As for increasing guild item stock or removing the "sellout" mechanic completely, this was done to prevent users from cornering the market and we don't have any plans to remove it.

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I'm sorry but that is the lamest excuse so far. Please tell me where in the "REAL WORLD" that you get 45 days holiday every year. No shops are open 8 days a week in the real world.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

As for increasing guild item stock or removing the "sellout" mechanic completely, this was done to prevent users from cornering the market and we don't have any plans to remove it.

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What. You realize this causes people to corner the market, not prevents it?
Especially for example, when buying an item like Meatballs which were changed to stack to 99. Before you had to make a bunch of purchases to buy the NPC out, now you can do it in two purchases. It screws other players over because one player bought it out 2 seconds after the guild opened.

Guild system is garbage. The stocking system is built as if only one person is buying from the shop. The fact one person can literally buy out everything worth buying in a short amount of time for a short amount of gil, is absolutely ridiculous. You have to remember FFXI is an MMO, and that tons of people want to buy from the guild.