Removal of Mercenaries

[Isola]

That's all well and good. Problem is it creates an unsolvable problem.

When the only barrier to entry is gil, you have what we have now. Absolutely trash tier players with all BiS gear.

While that would still happen, inevitably, regardless, the rate at which it's happening now is straight up ridiculous. This DOES NOT mean that if you earn it, you know how to better use it. It means that you can't be bothered to earn it, and can't be bothered to be capable enough to be playing with others.

There are only 2 kinds of people that get things merced. The ones that over pay, are clueless and just end up being overall negative on the in game environment. Or the ones that just don't feel like doing the same thing a dozen more times since the thing won't drop.

Like I've done pakecet 200 times. If you sell jov bodies for 3m, Yeah I'm gonna take one because I can't be bothered to do it 201 times. But if you sell it to a noob for 20m theres a huge problem. That's the problem that needs to stop.

[Afania]

New players struggle with NMs that someone geared can kill by themselves within 1 minute and charge you 5M or more for it. I don't think that is helping the community in any way.

New players doesn't have to pay, they totally have the option to shout "Can someone help me kill an X NM" in town and they are most likely will still get someone bored enough and help them kill for free.

The thing is, for those who doesn't want to help for free because they have something else to do in game, the gil charged are weight against other gil making methods.

It's possible to make 5m/hr from ambuscade with just 1 character and not selling spots. And it's also possible to spend 30 min to 1hr to get someone a drop even if each kill only takes 1 min, especially for Ruann T2 drops.

So if gil charged can't match gil/hr from other activities, then merc isn't worth doing. You may think an NM that takes 1 min kill only worth 300k or something, in reality, you may ended up killing some ruann T2 for an hour and not seeing one single drop, and it's not profitable compare with ambuscade VD.


Then there's also the fact that some NM is tough to solo and need 2 char+, then the gil hr is also being compare against 2 character doing ambu VD for 10m/hr.

The mercenary may think that is a low price because gil is easy to make for them but it's not really that easy for the new player.

unfortunately merc price isn't determined by new players ability to make gil, but weight against other gil making methods in game for the one who is charging for the service.

Also, how is it helping the community when people rather play mules and sell every kind of clear rather than invite people to form a group or a linkshell and actually have parties of people playing one character each?

Even if merc doesn't exist, people aren't going to "play with everybody". I know tons and tons of players who don't merc, they still play with their cliques with absolutely zero interaction with 95% of community. I don't merc either, and I basically don't do anything with anyone outside of LS, minus maybe like 3-5 people from another social LS of mine.

This kind of behaviour is very common in FFXI because everyone has different goals and don't always have something to offer for different groups. It's not really selling gear causing clique to happen, but WIDE variety of content level and how certain content can be extremely selective with jobs, experience and gears. There are tons of people that I really like and would love to play together with, but we just can't because our job spread or ingame goals don't match.

Playing with mules is the same. Sometimes it's easier/faster to use BRD GEO mules than actually communicate with real player and have them do things wrong.

So it's not really merc causing people using mules or play with clique. It's just...part of FFXI.

So what's the issue?
If people's issue is price, there's always option to get them for free via asking for help.
If the issue is clique, I can promise you even if SE ban every single account that sells gear and clear, people will still play with their mules and cliques.
If the issue is yell channel being annoying to read, you can always change server or blist.

When the only barrier to entry is gil, you have what we have now. Absolutely trash tier players with all BiS gear.

Even if merc doesn't exist, we'd just have "absolutely trash tier player without BiS gear" instead, so the situation is the same.

If someone doesn't care to play seriously in FFXI, not having the option to buy gear will not make them better. Because they don't play seriously to begin with.

tl;dr: I'm not convinced that there's moral issue with merc, nor I think any of the "issues" people suggest here happened because of merc. It's more of a personal taste IMO.