Do something about the AH and lower level gear????

[Ravenmore]

Something else I leveled SCH to level 20 with just the starter RSE gear. I coulda went to the npc in port windy and gotten lvl 10 linen gear but there really not much reason to. But on topic short of SE seeding the AH with gear mainly weapons, the AH merge is the easiest and best option they can do at this point. Much rather have time spent on other things that need fixing then some thing that only effects a group thats really not going to grow any.

[Kanjitai]

hate to break it to everyone but if SE doesn't do anything to draw in new players the game will die. after awhile people will stop playing it happens. if too many stop it will eventually cost more to run then what it makes. nothing should ever be ignored just because some think it's not worth it.

[Ravenmore]

Why would they even try to get new players for FF11 when they haven't really done anything like that for FF14. The game is past its prime as the players base gets smaller SE will keep merging servers keeping cost down. We will also get to the point that we don't see content updates but they will keep the servers up till that wouldn't be worth it or only one server. One day they will shut down the game not anytime soon but it will end.

[Kanjitai]

at this rate 11 is doomed. also as for 14 I played since alpha and it has gone from very bad to bad and it has been out for 6 months. Rift launched with more content. it's obvious that ether SE should ether start doing some work on their MMOs or shut them both down.

[Flunklesnarkin]

Not that i see ffxi game ending any time soon...

but a lot of old mmo's that have gone under get sold to new companies who turn them into item mall type deals... or open rmt type games...

RMT's be buying mmo's now >_>

[Aleste]

Ask a stupid question, get a reasonably stupid answer~

What's wrong with say; if a product is out of stock for 1 conquest cycle that a NPC puts the product up (at either just above npc resale price, or average of the last 1-2 sales) with a small (~3-5%+) markup ?

Obviously stacks of items, NM drops, HQ items would be exempt...

~edit: Somehow I managed to fail at typing a 3 letter word.

[bungiefan]

Just curious....was this an issue in 2002 when the game was first released? Just how did players make it back then?

Food for thought....discuss amongst yourselves....

Everyone sold every item that dropped on the AH or in Bazaar, and the prices from players were a lot lower for things like crystals with a lot less gil available. Crafted items generally made a profit, and people leveled crafts so they could turn the items into others that people needed, since you could only level one craft to max. As more and more players joined and people played longer, more gil entered the economy, and more items were constantly available, so prices adjusted.

The main problem was few people being high enough level at certain points to kill monsters to get items to craft gear for those levels. We didn't even know level 50 was the max at release until someone rushed there 3 months or so after release, and SquareSoft congratulated him and released the first limit break quest in the next patch. The next problem was having crafters with the skill level to craft the high level armor. Quests weren't well known, there were no wikis, only forums, and most of those were Japanese-only. FFXIOnline.com and the GameFAQs board were about the only place for English help for importers.

Now we know the recipes and have a lot of crafters with the skill, and a lot of people with high levels that can kill things for item drops. Many of them have lots of gil and little they actually need to spend it on. Why buy armor and weapons when you can quickly get RA/EX gear that is better than any gil can buy? With so many people having millions of gil they won't use now except on consumables, the price of consumables gets higher, making a barrier for new players to afford those consumables. I'm still trying to get all my spells for my first mage job, and all my others are only level 60 or less, so I have even more scrolls to buy if I level those to 90. I'm broke, and my armor for my BLM above level 50 or so is all BLM-only, so gearing those other jobs to solo means I stay in Seer's and Savages set, or I convert cruor to gil (which a new player can't do) to buy NPC equipment with poor stats compared to crafted items.

[RAIST]

hate to break it to everyone but if SE doesn't do anything to draw in new players the game will die. after awhile people will stop playing it happens. if too many stop it will eventually cost more to run then what it makes. nothing should ever be ignored just because some think it's not worth it.

um...ok...I'll give you that SE needs to do something if they want to draw in new players, but putting it in beginners mode won't bring in new players. This isn't Field of Dreams (build it and they will come...). What SE needs to do to draw in new players is MARKETING.

Oh yeah, and it's not a question of whether it is worth it or not--adding easier to obtain gear simply is not NECESSARY. As has already displayed, easy to obtain gear is ALREADY in the game--people just aren't looking for it or something, idk. After all, the AH isn't the ONLY way to get gear.

The people joining now that aren't already fans of the franchise (and thus already prepared for the challenge because they've been playing the other games and would not be turned off by said challenges), I would suspect are people that picked up the game in a bargain bin or off of Steam because it popped up in an ad rotation somewhere as a $5 or $10 download. These casual players are NOT what this game was designed for, and, personally, I really would rather not see them reduce it to that mentality. It survived for nearly 9 years without easy mode. Things were a heck of a lot worse when it was getting started and it was able to build it's way to nearly 1 million users pretty quick--eventually peaking at 2 million WITHOUT giving away gears. This is something that should, can, and HAS been rectified in the past by the playerbase itself without intervention from the Dev Team.

The AH is intended to be a PLAYER driven side of the game's economy. In other words, it is up to the PLAYERS to provide crafted items...not the SE support staff. SE has already offered adequate gears for you to earn/purchase on your own if you don't want to craft. That is how the game was designed. It is your choice. Put forth the effort yourself, or find someone to help you out. Also, if you really want to do something about the availablilty....how about becoming a part of the solution yourself?

If you feel strongly about it, how about dropping 5-10k a pop into level 7 leather gear when your nation's vendors are offering it and putting it up in another city's AH? How about buying some of those pieces and upgrading them to the Lizard or Studded pieces and put them up in the AH's? I have done this some myself while buying/crafting/selling at cost some of these pieces for lsmates. And guess what? Some of it had to be RELISTED!!! After it came back a second time, I just desynthed the leather bandana and sold the leather instead...within a matter of minutes I might add. I even upgraded some pieces to lizard gear when they came back and listed those higher level pieces--some of those came back as well.

Again, instead of just complaining about the lack of items available, how about doing something about it yourself to contribute to solving the problem?

[xiozen]

I really think SE should make an NPC in each of the dedicated areas to sell gear around that level.

For example:
Nations 1-30?
Selbina/Mhaura 10-20
Jeuno 20-50
Norg/Rabao etc 50-60.
and so on

Make them affordable, but reduce the sellable price so people cant exploit.

I find it very difficult to get gear as a new player.

Hmm, considering SE introduced Reraise earrings with a type of tutorial NPC for new players, to me means they understand the need to "Help" beginners to this game get started... this thread is no exception, considering the current state of the game.
+
I love this idea. It can ACTUALLY work! An NPC (one ALREADY in the game, no need to create a new one) located strategically, based on leveling areas--offering gear items consistent with the area that they are in... now, similar to how the starter cities offer "bare-bones" weapons and armor sets--these NPC's should offer the same choices.

This really should only be needed up to level 39 or so, since the AF weapon (item) becomes available to jobs around that time... from there AF gear kicks in for all jobs, which "CAN" be technically worn til 75... so what are we realistically looking at: gear selections starting at around level 15 (i believe current stores/shops offer weapons/armor up to level 12)... then additional gear/weapon selections from 15 - 39 scattered around.

This would have absolutely NO impact on the crafting system... if anything, this may ADD to equipment/weapons to the Auction House for circulation...as well as offering possible desynth materials to high-end crafters.

[Glamdring]

This seriously needs to happen. I refuse to simply leech my character to Abyssea levels and I'm currently leveling Pup. I'm level 42 and still using Lynx Bagnakhas; not by choice mind you, it's simply all I can find. It's causing me difficulties in keeping hate off my pup (who is pretty good at avoiding hate anyway) because I simply can't do the damage to hold hate, even with provoking, and it only takes 1 hit to ruin the De/Activate tactic. My next legitimate chance at a weapon is if I use one of my higher level jobs to camp for Exocets (0/3 so far). Otherwise, I need to wait for level 58 and the poppet katars I managed to get. And this is simply 1 example, many players are confronted by this issue.

On a related note, blowing 30-50k on a stack of sushi at level 10 when the boost simply isn't that useful is totally unreasonable, but at least food you can get some mediocre stuff from NPCs. Were it not for my having gotten several crafts to 60 I'd be dreading ranger in a few weeks for ammo/bows. Unfortunately, my primary craft is leather, so with 60 wood, etc. supplies for job levels 50+ are a problem, too. I don't like the 2 craft +fishing +synergy to 100 option, maybe because the rewards with 1 craft>fishing>synergy have not been enough to pull people out of Abyssea long enough to make saleables.

The only realistic solution I see is to raise the number of items that can be up at 1 time, the sales never time out (you will have to withdraw and reprice items that aren't selling manually) and the AH fees lowerred to get crafters to once again feel it is worthwhile to put up that level 75 and below gear. The reason that noone is putting anything like that up is because there is a good chance that noone will try to purchase it in the 7 days and the crafter is simply throwing away the AH fee, possibly multiple times. Another option, but a longshot in my opinion, is to make low-level crafted gear a common ingredient in higher-level recipies/synergy, thus providing a possibly more steady market for this low-level gear.