The value of gil is worth 10x less due to inflation

I just remember way back in FFXI where getting gil was kinda hard, the thing being is that there was actually useful stuff you could buy with it. Even if it was just minor gear upgrades on the AH, you still circulated gil around, and had to go out and get the gil.

I only have about 4m but I've never crafted or even really sold stuff (accept HW quest gear which sells for absurd prices on famfrit). Theres also just nothing to buy that you can't go get yourself. I like the idea of tome gear costing gil. Make it expensive, and NPC vendor only, and you take out the gil from the game.

I'm fairly sure SE likes that Gil is worthless because it means that RMT is largely worthless. Most other MMO everyone equates the main currency to dollars, especially when you can convert the currency into payment for play.

It would be nice to consolidate the different currencies a bit. Why each beast-man tribe needs their own currency is a bit over the top.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Everyone can get mounts and glamour, are those meaningless?



Most people with houses live in dead wards because most wards are dead. Personal housing in wards isn't condusive to an active ward because nobody but that person has any reason to go there and they're probably going directly to their house.

You'd need nothing but FC houses with active FCs to really make wards lively.

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If thigns are easy to acquire, they become meaningless. That fact has been true in every single MMO. There is 'social' value in things that are difficult to acquire. Imagine if everyone could get the phoenix mount from HW by merely purchasing it for 1k gil.

Imagine if you could get anima weapons by just talking to an NPC and they hadn you one. No work, no effort, everyone gets one so long as you have the cash.

If you make it so "Anyone can easily get a house" houses will lose social value and become meaningless. "Hey! I have a house!" Cool, so does everyone else.

Dead wards are wards wtih either missing houses (empty plots) or housing with no amenities. While you may not see to much foot traffic in wards, people still do notice who has houses and whats on those properties. Part of the appeal to living in wards is to see other peoples properties. If you make it so housing is easily acquired, youre going to see more 'dead wards' in the sense of people just buying a plot and doing nothing with it.

As for inflation, the reason inflation occurs is because ambient money in the game continues to increase by the means of "pumped in printed money." Quests/fates/etc give you money, and since there is no "economy" on the NPC side, what ends up happening long term in MMOs is that more and more money is being fed into the system at a rate that far exceeds money 'leaving' it. Meaning, more people are receiving money from NPCs from items, quests, fates, etc, than NPCs recieving money from people via purchases or what not.

You could call the MMO economy almost always incomplete, because it very rarely factors in the NPC side of the equation effectively. They can fix the inflation problem by either making things cost Gil more frequently, charging taxes to commodities, and consolidating currencies and treating NPCs and organizations like actual businesses that need to generate profits. As an example, scrap GC seals completely and make all purchases gil based. Scrap Ventures and make it gil based. Reduce if not outright remove Gil as a reward for MOST MSQ quests. Make Goldsaucer games (Trip Triad, Chocobo racing, events, games) cost gil to play, and award you with MGP to buy items (much like how a real arcade works). Place taxes on housing, apartments, and the like. Increase taxes on MB transactions. Make it much more difficult to sell items to NPCs for Gil. By and large, remove all sources of money that players come into passively, and start making it a commodity you have to earn.

Essentially, start making Gil a total currency in the game, rather than a one sided reward that is continuously fed into a player system, but not managed into the NPC side of the equation.

Edit: With more thought, the only things that should give you currency for 'questing' should be fates and hunts, and your placement/success on these things will determine the money you receive. I make this an exception simply because itll help promote more activity outside of towns. People can earn cash (albeit wont make you millions) by doing the fates. So that this way there is a way to earn some basic cash for upkeep (repairing armor, or other misc small expenditures). Also, by increasing the value of certain items like potions, and the like, can be important. Make those items easier to craft or when crafted have higher yields, but still be purchasable and viable in actual content. While people may not like it, a good way to fix the economy is to run it like an economy. That means people need to work for gil with 'jobs' rather than it enter the player economy ambientely through quests or other misc. events. They could even do a thing where there are daily activities that will award a small gil amount that have to be unlocked and done, if fates arent your thing. Do a small fetch quest (Bring 50 mithril ore and get paid 10k Gil) or something along those lines. As long as effort is pushed into it, and it is not something that is easily achieved passively (like completing a regular quest or MSQ) and so long as the NPC side of the equation is abysmal, inflation is still going to be an issue

What we need is more gil sinks. A mount that costs 50 million for instance. I remember WoW having very expensive mounts purchasable for in-game gold - it serves to take a lot of gil out of the game instead of letting it sit around unused.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

If thigns are easy to acquire, they become meaningless. That fact has been true in every single MMO. There is 'social' value in things that are difficult to acquire. Imagine if everyone could get the phoenix mount from HW by merely purchasing it for 1k gil.

Imagine if you could get anima weapons by just talking to an NPC and they hadn you one. No work, no effort, everyone gets one so long as you have the cash.

If you make it so "Anyone can easily get a house" houses will lose social value and become meaningless. "Hey! I have a house!" Cool, so does everyone else.

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You're equating things that take work to get and something that takes "logging in at exactly the right time and not being punished by the queue gods". Houses have no meaning right now because it was up to the Shirogane lottery if you got one. That's going to do nothing but piss people off. Especially when they marketed it as a big deal and have so many systems related to it.

Having a house is in no way impressive right now.

Agree about the economy, though.

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Originally Posted by Bobs

I'm fairly sure SE likes that Gil is worthless because it means that RMT is largely worthless. Most other MMO everyone equates the main currency to dollars, especially when you can convert the currency into payment for play.

It would be nice to consolidate the different currencies a bit. Why each beast-man tribe needs their own currency is a bit over the top.

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That is the sad thing though, for the most part gil is worthless because of the way RMT exploit it to make money. It's sad that such a tactic needs to be used to limit the usefulness of a currency as a means to combat Real Money Trading.

Housing at that price? Sure, many people have seen their gil increase tenfold, but the vast majority of players across any server still barely have 10M, and I'd much rather housing be an opportunity for everyone as opposed to a very very small percentile of players on any given server.

That being said I wouldn't mind more incentive to spend gil elsewhere on rare items and materials used for furniture and glamour.

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Originally Posted by RethDaron

EVE Online does it better than any game. The value of ISK has only gone up a few % over 14 years. It's very hard to do an economy right in an MMO unless you lock down trading it might as well not be there (BDO) or permanently losing items (EVE).

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EVE also converts real money into digital money because of how PLEX works. The kind where someone can sink $200 and another player can steal it (or destroy it) in an instant (forgive the Kotaku link). EVE also had three currencies, is down to two and looking to convert to one (if they haven't already).

I was specifically looking at a game that has only one major type of currency and manages to keep that currency in demand from the start of the game all the way through into endgame without the interference of cash-shop inflating or deflating that market.

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Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

I just remember way back in FFXI where getting gil was kinda hard, the thing being is that there was actually useful stuff you could buy with it. Even if it was just minor gear upgrades on the AH, you still circulated gil around, and had to go out and get the gil.

I only have about 4m but I've never crafted or even really sold stuff (accept HW quest gear which sells for absurd prices on famfrit). Theres also just nothing to buy that you can't go get yourself. I like the idea of tome gear costing gil. Make it expensive, and NPC vendor only, and you take out the gil from the game.

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They would need to give out more gil for that to work well.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

If you make it so "Anyone can easily get a house" houses will lose social value and become meaningless. "Hey! I have a house!" Cool, so does everyone else.

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I agree with most of what you're saying, but really most people that have a house don't give the slightest hoot about other people with houses. In fact I've literally never just randomly looked at houses. The only one that's ever of any relevance is the one I'm going to whether a friend wants to hang in their own or there's an RP event going on inside. If everyone got a large house for free, it wouldn't affect me none.

Why does gil need a use though? Outside housing why does gil need to have a purpose?

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Originally Posted by Kaes

At the launch of Heavensward, 300,000 gil represented the entire savings for many adventurers.

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*source needed

...and for reference, the original market price for most crafted i70 battle gear was 800k ish a piece.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

*source needed

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For 2.0 it was true, and then later on it was true for latecomers who joined nearing Heavensward because they didn't have any time to accumulate wealth before 3.0 went live. Remember back in 2.0 mobs didn't drop gil. If you wanted gil, your options were: Leves, FATEs, the few coffers in dungeons that gave allagan coin pieces, or you needed to sell stuff on the market board. If you only went through the quests and didn't "grind" any of those gil sources, then you'd be sitting with more or less 400k.

I still remember back when the very first pre-relic weapons were being listed on the market board for my server (Tonberry at that time), they went for 500k each, and it was more than my whole worth.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Why does gil need a use though? Outside housing why does gil need to have a purpose?

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It doesn't, so long as you don't care about having a functional economy. If you do care about having a functional economy and would just rather have a number that keeps going up for a currency, then it's fine.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

It doesn't, so long as you don't care about having a functional economy. If you do care about having a functional economy and would just rather have a number that keeps going up for a currency, then it's fine.

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Functional economy in what sense? It's an MMO economy, and it works just fine, or at least as fine as one can expect. You can't have a real economy when supply can be provided by literally everyone and money generates from nothing.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

Functional economy in what sense? It's an MMO economy, and it works just fine, or at least as fine as one can expect. You can't have a real economy when supply can be provided by literally everyone and money generates from nothing.

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Yet people still seem to complain that they are broke hmmmm I wonder why... Oh wait I know, people actually spend time grinding and crafting, camping out housing on release dates, while others feel they should be entitled to it just because they pay a subscription. -.-... not to mention RTM >.>

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

Functional economy in what sense? It's an MMO economy, and it works just fine, or at least as fine as one can expect. You can't have a real economy when supply can be provided by literally everyone and money generates from nothing.

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Anyone who has seen Eve's economy can expect better out of an MMO economy. That one has a single currency that is used for almost everything and very low inflation. It resembles a real economy in a lot of ways. XIV has a more standard themepark economy where there's a currency that is supposedly important yet almost nothing uses it and players are instead always running around getting 27 other currencies that are all for one set of things.

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Originally Posted by ManuelBravo

Yet people still seem to complain that they are broke hmmmm I wonder why... Oh wait I know, people actually spend time grinding and crafting, camping out housing on release dates, while others feel they should be entitled to it just because they pay a subscription. -.-... not to mention RTM >.>

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I....don't really understand what point you're trying to press on to me.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Anyone who has seen Eve's economy can expect better out of an MMO economy. That one has a single currency that is used for almost everything and very low inflation. It resembles a real economy in a lot of ways. XIV has a more standard themepark economy where there's a currency that is supposedly important yet almost nothing uses it and players are instead always running around getting 27 other currencies that are all for one set of things.

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EVE is a game literally about an economy, and the reason that its inflation is so low is because large amounts of money leaves the economy as well, something not like FFXIV. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to assume a similar application of mandatory risk of millions upon millions of gil is something most people would be happy to deal with.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

*source needed

...and for reference, the original market price for most crafted i70 battle gear was 800k ish a piece.

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And the award for best ironic statement goes to...

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

And the award for best ironic statement goes to...

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You? Certainly not mine, as at 800k apiece those were still pretty affordable. And all players had the same capability of farming tomes for the main mats for them.

If the economy was as bad as everyone says, subscriptions would be plummeting not at an all time high, which I thought they were.....I could be wrong. I get ppl don't like it, but the overall business model for the game obviously is working since it is competing with WOW better than ever. I think there is more balance then people think. No....you do not need gil to become a functionjal part of Eorzea....but there are certain things it allows you to do if you're into extra stuff. Make it mandatory for stuff and people will be complaining that there should be access to certain items/gear etc. w/o being rich. I think it's nice because no matter your wealth, you can still play the game. Wanna do end game or housing, well get rich....and put in time....wanna breeze through? Fine, gil shouldn't hold you back.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

You? Certainly not mine, as at 800k apiece those were still pretty affordable. And all players had the same capability of farming tomes for the main mats for them.

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I think what he is saying is you attacked a comment for not having a source, and then made a claim without a source. Therefore being : ironic, hypocritical, or contradictory. Your source, or lack there of, was nonexistent, just like the * needs source * you added.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

*source needed

...and for reference, the original market price for most crafted i70 battle gear was 800k ish a piece.

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Um...ok. My source is I've been playing since 2.0 and remember those figures specifically.

So your word is a source but another's players words aren't? I think you mistake what a source is. A source is a viable " thing " that everyone can trust and belive iron clad its true. Like, hey salt is bad for you, dont trust Alistaire? here is my source : " Harvard medical Journal 1994 Dr Johnson thesis on 20 years of research " or something hahaha.

Your source? Uggggg trust me ive played since 2.0

I have played for awhile too, so that means when I say Housing will add 100 houses and everyone w/o one is guarnteed one, that means its true right? Why ? " Um...ok.....I remember cause I played in 2.0."

The audacity.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Um...ok. My source is I've been playing since 2.0 and remember those figures specifically.

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*Needs Source*

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Um...ok. My source is I've been playing since 2.0 and remember those figures specifically.

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So same source as the other guy, who you questioned? Also, you're on a legacy server, the new 2.0 servers didn't have players with 800k the first week of ARR.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

So same source as the other guy, who you questioned? Also, you're on a legacy server, the new 2.0 servers didn't have players with 800k the first week of ARR.

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Stouter....Thank you. Haha.

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Originally Posted by QueenSophie

If the economy was as bad as everyone says, subscriptions would be plummeting not at an all time high, which I thought they were.....I could be wrong. I get ppl don't like it, but the overall business model for the game obviously is working since it is competing with WOW better than ever. I think there is more balance then people think.

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Your average player who just does roulettes to get gear and such is effectively not participating in the economy at all, so aside from a house they have no reason to care about it.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Your average player who just does roulettes to get gear and such is effectively not participating in the economy at all, so aside from a house they have no reason to care about it.

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Yes and no. Yes, you're right, not really participating in the economy. No however,I disagree, there are lots more reasons to care about gil : I know plenty of people that wish they had this scroll, this minion, this barding etc. Those are all gil sinks that really aren't related to housing at all. Also expensive and rare glamours. I can think of 100 million right now I could spend on things I want that aren't related to housing at all.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

So same source as the other guy, who you questioned? Also, you're on a legacy server, the new 2.0 servers didn't have players with 800k the first week of ARR.

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Ah yeah, that's the other thing. Despite being on a legacy server I'm not a legacy player, and still did just fine economically.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Ah yeah, that's the other thing. Despite being on a legacy server I'm not a legacy player, and still did just fine economically.

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Yes, you started on a server where people had millions of gil to buy things at launch. On other servers, all the gil had to be created from NPCs, which was insanely slow in 2.0. That's why the economy and prices were vastly different; 800k on your server, 50k on others.

The problem with most modern MMORPG is that the upkeep for a character is either minimal or non-existent. It should be hard to run out of things to buy by anyone but the wealthiest players and there should be recurring costs to prevent currency from simply accumulating. The later is the easiest to implement.

Rich players should spend a significant amount of currency to enjoy a "wealthy lifestyle" within the game. Think special conveniences and combat bonuses. It should look and feel good to be rich, but quite costly.
Poor players should enjoy a "carefree lifestyle" with no convenience or bonus. This is suitable for a questing and leveling character.
The other players, let's call them the middle class, should fall in between. They should be capable of affording the combat bonuses (for higher end content) or conveniences, but not both without extra work.
Give free companies options to add different conveniences (no combat bonus) for an added cost.

You end up with a system in which you cannot remain forever rich by doing nothing and benefiting from every advantages. It does not even need to be very high costs.

For instance, set the wealthy lifestyle (complete package of bonuses and conveniences) to 100'000 gils per month. Set only the combat bonuses to 10'000 gils per month. This system feels rewarding to the players spending the gils, because the gils you give offer something meaningful in return. It does not negatively affect the leveling player, but still adds an optional objective. Let the combat bonuses be affordable simply by doing one or two roulettes and it will not feel like a burden. Have the wealthy style be easily achievable for any level capped player and it will undoubtedly be popular.

I see owning an individual house, having access to an extra servant, access to a private market board to be valuable visible conveniences. I see "well-rested" as an inn/room/apartment special bonus (with a cost), a justifiable way to get a few percents extra health and damage. Even as low as 1%, it is meaningful in high end content.

Want to go one step beyond? Make the monthly cost a variable amount to change based on the highs and lows of the server's economy. Make the calculations based on the server's market board activity over the month and adjust the price every 1st of the month. Want to stimulate the server's economy? Lower the costs. Want to slow down inflation? Raise the costs.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

It doesn't, so long as you don't care about having a functional economy. If you do care about having a functional economy and would just rather have a number that keeps going up for a currency, then it's fine.

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The economy does function. It may not be nearly perfect but it still functions.

Not only that but isn't economy also server based? It's rather hard to determine what one item is worth unless you go to every server and calculate an average. Some servers have more bots than others, for example, which would hurt the economy on that server much more.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

For 2.0 it was true, and then later on it was true for latecomers who joined nearing Heavensward because they didn't have any time to accumulate wealth before 3.0 went live. Remember back in 2.0 mobs didn't drop gil. If you wanted gil, your options were: Leves, FATEs, the few coffers in dungeons that gave allagan coin pieces, or you needed to sell stuff on the market board. If you only went through the quests and didn't "grind" any of those gil sources, then you'd be sitting with more or less 400k.

I still remember back when the very first pre-relic weapons were being listed on the market board for my server (Tonberry at that time), they went for 500k each, and it was more than my whole worth.

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I had 2 mil when I finished SB. Down to 400k now and I will need to spend that for relic. That doesn't even count crafted items I will need to buy.

So, Just some more points in regards to an economy.

You want a functional economy in an MMO if you want there to be some way for players to give value for their efforts to other players, much like how real currency works. A dollar is (in theory beyond it being backed by gold or something) is a statement of value for productivity or product from one individual to another. Or simply, I pay you a dollar for your labor. You can use that Dollar to pay another person for their labor or goods. It makes it possible for us to trade with each other in a means beyond straight up bartering.

In the MMO sense, it allows players who do crafting or gather or other methods of labor to sell that labor to other players more easily. If I craft a table you want, or a piece of armor, or etc, I can say that my labor is worth so much in gil. You pay that amount by accruing gil for your OWN labors.

The issue of why you want a functioning economy in an MMO is that without one, things get really screwed up real fast. If theres to little or to much Gil, it becomes extremely difficult to quantify the value of goods and services and ultimately collapses the player bases ability to trade with one another effectively. It's much easier for me to say "I want 20k Gil for this peice of armor" and actually have potential buyers than say "I need 50 mythril ore, 25 Ewe Lumber, 6 Dalamud Popotos, and 2 HQ Straw for this Armor piece."

This is why inflation is bad. As more and more money is pumped in, the value of Gil Drops substantially as it is easier to acquire. The intrinsic value of items still remains (Glamours, crafted armors, food stuffs, etc) but requires more and more Gil to meet the value of the item due to inflation. Overtime, Gil becomes meaningless and costs skyrocket and the market collapses due to inefficiency. This gets worse because NPC and non player items are not adjusted for inflation. Potions still cost the same as the day the game launched. So did all the NPC Materials, low level armors, and the like. Houses have also not increased in value, broadly speaking. So people that have accrued 500 million gil essentially are overcapped cause that money isnt spendable on anything. Theyre to well to do. But more money is still being fed into the system ambiently, but not leaving it fast enough to drive inflation down.

If you want to fix inflation so that everything stabilizes in the markets, you need to remove pretty much all sources of passive Gil earnings. So no gil from MSQ quests, no Gil from dungeons. Increase costs on NPC items, reduce what items can be sold to NPCs. Place taxes on properties, increase the intrinsic value of NPC items, etc etc.

Essentially start running the NPC side of the equation like actual businesses that absorb player generated money, and reduce whats being pumped into the economy passively through just going through the motions.

We just need to have more gil dumps in the game besides housing.

This is the kind or quality of conversation that belongs in a barber shop when anyone wants to talk about "the economy" has zero consideration to per capita income or the general price level of goods and services, other economic indicators. Just oh, you can make this much and I know people who have made this much by now so certain things should cost more and the free market system is broken. How did you even come up with the inflation rate? Is EVERYTHING costing more gil now than an expansion pack ago? I don't even the math.

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Originally Posted by Jellybums

This is the kind or quality of conversation that belongs in a barber shop when anyone wants to talk about "the economy" has zero consideration to per capita income or the general price level of goods and services, other economic indicators. Just oh, you can make this much and I know people who have made this much by now so certain things should cost more and the free market system is broken. How did you even come up with the inflation rate? Is EVERYTHING costing more gil now than an expansion pack ago? I don't even the math.

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Doesnt take an economics degree to understand that printing money lowers its value as it comes easier to acquire.

And in FFXIV, and in most MMOs, that is exactly what happens because more money is being pumped into the player pool thorugh NPC interactions than being pulled from the player pool.

Can I just say to anyone that says " gils " ....please just stop.....

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Doesnt take an economics degree to understand that printing money lowers its value as it comes easier to acquire.

And in FFXIV, and in most MMOs, that is exactly what happens because more money is being pumped into the player pool thorugh NPC interactions than being pulled from the player pool.

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That's not causing inflation if that money isn't raising the prices of goods /reducing the purchasing power of gil. You just have a growing economy. But if your gil can't buy crap now that it used to be able to purchase years ago, then yes you clearly have inflation. But I don't see things in the market board costing more than they used to when I first tried this game. So it's ironic to claim there's inflation therefore raise the prices in the housing market when doing so causes inflation in the housing market when there was none to begin with.