Tackling RMT: What creates buyers in the first place?

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Originally Posted by Tiramu

You're the second person to do this and I dont believe its an honest point because my post said nothing of the sort and its just silly.
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Suggesting that this would lead to some crafter who listed their item on the MB getting banned if a gil buyer purchased it is just daft.

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Your words were:

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As soon as they find someone involved with RMT, trace it forward and back, and ban every account involved.

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One of the prime ways that goldsellers work is via the MB, it's used to launder and move money between disposable alts and gilholders who are protected. Gil moves from the holders, through the MB with some fuzzing, in that some gil is given to innocent people, while the rest is given to the mule - the aim is to muddy the water as much as possible.

It's going to be incredibly difficult, and prone to mistakes to "trace it forward" - just how does the STF know who is genuine and who is innocent during the transfers, and where does the STF stop? Do they go one step too far and ban you for the 10,000,000g mount the holder also bought during his 500,000,000 transfer to muddy it? What protections are there to stop this?

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Your words were:



One of the prime ways that goldsellers work is via the MB, it's used to launder and move money between disposable alts and gilholders who are protected. Gil moves from the holders, through the MB with some fuzzing, in that some gil is given to innocent people, while the rest is given to the mule - the aim is to muddy the water as much as possible.

It's going to be incredibly difficult, and prone to mistakes to "trace it forward" - just how does the STF know who is genuine and who is innocent during the transfers, and where does the STF stop? Do they go one step too far and ban you for the 10,000,000g mount the holder also bought during his 500,000,000 transfer to muddy it? What protections are there to stop this?

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This shouldn't be too hard to figure out if you are tracing the network between bots, sellers and buyers. There will be patterns and consistent behaviour. Whats more likely is that disposable mules could be missed because the traffic of gil isnt clear. However, most gil holders and mules will exist for one purpose and one purpose only, moving gil around. The majority of legitimate players do not spend their entire in-game activity moving gil around.

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Originally Posted by LogicHatesMe

Another angle to view it from is: How is paying a farmer gil to level your character to 80 with real money any different from paying SE Store money to skip to level 80?

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You don't run the risk of losing your account, either by having it stolen by the people controlling your character that you've paid to do content for you, or by SE finding out that you paid for RMT services and you have your account terminated. Giving SE your $25 is actually cheaper than paying someone to boost your character for you, or even the same price as a story/job skip straight from the MogStation. I can also say that poking around a couple google results made me real glad I have uBlock on lmao. Felt scuzzy just clicking the links for research.

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Originally Posted by Tiramu

Undercutting bots are a problem for most every crafter on the MB. RMT also inflates MB prices on ticket items.

Just look at FFXI, the RMT bots seized the economy and pumped a lot of items to insane prices.

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FFXI always had insane prices and gil was hard to come by. RMT made it worse.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

It's going to be incredibly difficult, and prone to mistakes to "trace it forward" - just how does the STF know who is genuine and who is innocent during the transfers, and where does the STF stop? Do they go one step too far and ban you for the 10,000,000g mount the holder also bought during his 500,000,000 transfer to muddy it? What protections are there to stop this?

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You look for the suspicious transaction when tracing it forward.

Someone selling an item at the going market rate is not someone trying to buy from RMT. There's no need to buy from RMT when a normal player will pay that same price. RMT buying that item (especially if it's a piece of gear) is likely because they need that item for a RMT character.

Someone selling an item at far above the going market rate is going to be buying from RMT when an RMT confirmed account is involved. RMT is not going to give up 5 million gil to buy a pair of Cotton Dress Gloves from some random player who had just coincidentally thought that 5 million gil is a fair listing price when that 5 million gil is worth real money to RMT.

At the same time, that 5 million gil pair of Cotton Dress Gloves might be getting listed by a player that has a friend loaning them 5 million gil to buy and furnish a house, or the player could be transferring gil between their own characters. There are plenty of suspicious transactions that will turn out to be pretty ordinary because the limits that SE places on players forces us into those games to move gil between our own characters or to help out friends.

That's why the gil must be traced forward from RMT. It eliminates wasting manpower to trace the suspicious but ordinary transactions and focuses it on the transactions where RMT is known to be involved.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You look for the suspicious transaction when tracing it forward.

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I don't think it can be an absolute zero tolerance, as I took Tira's words to mean. It would have to be done with great care, and a lot of protections in place to stop innocents being caught up in it.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I don't think it can be an absolute zero tolerance, as I took Tira's words to mean. It would have to be done with great care, and a lot of protections in place to stop innocents being caught up in it.

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While I think a zero tolerance stance needs to be taken and it might have came across as aggressive, I don't think they should ban every player that comes into contact with an RMT account. I mean the ones who are clearly bots, sellers, buyers or mules. If it isnt clear then no, they shouldnt be banned.

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Originally Posted by rainichan

You don't run the risk of losing your account, either by having it stolen by the people controlling your character that you've paid to do content for you, or by SE finding out that you paid for RMT services and you have your account terminated. Giving SE your $25 is actually cheaper than paying someone to boost your character for you, or even the same price as a story/job skip straight from the MogStation. I can also say that poking around a couple google results made me real glad I have uBlock on lmao. Felt scuzzy just clicking the links for research.



FFXI always had insane prices and gil was hard to come by. RMT made it worse.

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Yes, gil was hard to come by and prices were always high, but the RMT accounts monopolised certain items, deliberately hyperinflating them and intentionally squeezed crafters out of certain markets. Granted, due to how that game worked it was easier to do than in XIV, its still causing issues.

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Originally Posted by Tiramu

I don't think they should ban every player that comes into contact with an RMT account. I mean the ones who are clearly bots, sellers, buyers or mules. If it isnt clear then no, they shouldnt be banned.

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We can absolutely agree on that!

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I don't think it can be an absolute zero tolerance, as I took Tira's words to mean. It would have to be done with great care, and a lot of protections in place to stop innocents being caught up in it.

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Exactly, and that's probably the roadblock.

Is SE willing to add extra manpower that such tracking would require, or are they more willing to take the financial losses that occurs from payment chargeback fees plus the additional work that has to be devoted to restoring compromsed accounts to the correct owner and doing the character rollbacks?

If financial losses from fraudulent activity are increasing over the cost of hiring a body to reduce those losses, I'd be hiring that body as an employer.

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Originally Posted by Tiramu

While I think a zero tolerance stance needs to be taken and it might have came across as aggressive, I don't think they should ban every player that comes into contact with an RMT account. I mean the ones who are clearly bots, sellers, buyers or mules. If it isnt clear then no, they shouldnt be banned.

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MMO history shows that zero tolerance policies don't work well (at least on the buyer side). Players who are permabanned on first offense just buy another account and do the same thing all over again.

The best effect is using temporary but lengthy bans on the first offense. Players have that time to think about what they've lost access to but they also know they can get it back eventually. The majority will not engage in RMT a second time because they don't want to lose access a second time..

Of course if they do engage in RMT a second time, then you might as well ban them. They aren't willing to learn the lesson.

And of course players wouldn't be banned for normal activity involving an account that just happens to be RMT. That's outside of their control.

Large amount of gils are really easy to make in FFXIV once you take a little bit of time to learn about crafting jobs and how EASY it is nowadays, to lvl a crafter from 1 to 90 with around 60 levequests under 5/ 6 hours of play. Each crafting and gathering levequests gives you sometimes half to 1/4 of a level depending if u can gather / craft a HQ item.

Roulettes gives approximatively 180k to 200K gil every resets if you do most of them, and they can be quickly done too...

The problem of RMT is the intentional grief systems put in place, i predicted that this lottery system would not hinder, but help the many fc's RMT owner to own even more and more of these wards, people laughed at it, how could i predict dozens and dozens of alt of the same fc's / guild and alts would fill the lottery tickets for 1 house leaving you not with the25 to 30% chance of getting it if you clicked around 4 other people trying to compete with you during the day or night with the previous system, but now that they can just divide their huge pockets into dozens of alts, you are more like in a 2% chance in front of 99+ others alts. (And it did happen first 2 weeks on the best spots of mist / goblet and gridania housing) Adding to that the many years of impunity from hackers to use negative ping with addons / third party launchers in the game, and most high level raiding guilds using KactuarB0t and automated calls (and overlay visuals ontop of the screen to show what's going on.)

The hacking scenes and methods used on the game, because SE's unwillingness to implement an anti hacking software, are plenty and abundant, without any punishment for it whatsoever, with people ready to pay up for these tools and laugh at legit / normal players they steamroll. Here's a video with someone that has infiltrated a bunch of discords and reddit where these type of individuals gather and find themselves excuses for doing it (the common excuse is they are good you are bad because they can use cheats) :

https://youtu.be/sXlzYhvlOdQ

I'm not going to talk about the awfull loot system in savage, that if you are unlucky, you can still play 8 to 9 weeks and more and still haven't bis'd a single job if you are unlucky and pretty much also incentivize Run sales offering the "whole loot package" with it, for how seriously bad rng is on pfinder, and i found out that even in statics, you can have several weeks where you just see 2x rings or 2x necklaces, and barely ever an earing, or a combo of the other two, missing one piece, same can go with RNG for other bosses, allways missing a glove here and a helmet there. It can happen to you a number of weeks enough that the party members need to save up a shit ton of tomes not only for the part that doesn't drop but also for the 3 to 4 augments necessary for their memoquartz bis.

If i was an RMT seller and saw these badly designed house systems to get them, loot systems On HL/Savage / Ultimate content, was a run / house / nightclub owner / seller, i would just clap my knee and laugh to the bank over the many unnecessary manufactured frustrations put on player's shoulders in a final fantasy game of all places, of all places and games where PVE should be made fun and rewarding, to have one of the most unfair and stupid looting system for High end content raid gear. As they didn't change it for many years now. I do firmly believe, firmly believe that like many other mmo's in the west going through western publishers for the west part that we have, like in many many example by the past and revealed affairs / scandals that aaaaaallways, allways, allways end up being revealed by a CM or past GM, yes, allways revealed, but mostly after a games lifespan's end / quasi-death, that there was bonuses given to specific guilds / raiders through CM's and GM's, and there is allways, allways collusion for these type of affairs, given in the west as part of the "job" privileges / incentives / aid / access whatever it may be to promote the game, and make content seem more appealing.

You know what happened with a bunch of unused codes for items that are pretty rare nowadays to find, and also to supposedly cashback of "stolen" credit cards bought codes before they got destroyed by Employees that, them, were authorized by western publishers to use them, and players "friends" from specific discords of streamers that get backroom PR / marketting incentives, don't shy away from receiving these lost "codes" from employees and CM in the game :

https://i.imgur.com/65w9Rzi.png

This. is. exactly. how. This corruption, lazyness, access, ease of reach on everything permiates in the west. ALL the freaking TIME. All the time, it is privilege and muh "gifties" that end up creating layers and ladders of corrupted people from the top to bottom, letting go of codes, dripping little incentives and bonuses from the fountain to the droplet under, of this and that privilege, data access, leaks, top 3 to top 10 clearing guilds not naming their players but offeringtheir services on almost every god forsaken RMT gil andrun selling websites. And these communities, these CM's /GM's bathed in these system from mmo's to mmo's so much so they think all of this underground / under the surface subculture is normal an part of the job. You get that world 1st runs are always sponsored one way or another by the region's publisher's or at least one step removed publisher's substack and these previously famous raiders on other mmo's just don't do it exclusively for the lolz and giggles but there is money and promises of access this and sales that as incentives under the table right ? You aren't this gullible, it's especially true in the west.

Also the "we count on players not caring about changes to do whatever we want hue hue hue hue" mentality is exactly a prime example of that lazyness permiating into more corruption and "laissez faire" / letting go that just leads to more rmt too.

Some systems are just not solely designed unfair and seemingly outdated for the sake of being outdated, there is a whole sublayer of consideration on how frustrating can it be made to incentivize players to these third party solutions.

This is true, and talking about it enrages discord trolls, lazies and stalkers profiting from it, they really absolutely hate you for making the more unsuspecting masses understand how it works and how often these trolling / griefing tactics areused.

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Originally Posted by Katt_Felista

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If one was to ignore all the usual conspiracy nonsense, this does sound like getting mad at a bakery giving away bread at the end of the day for free to friends&family of employees and being left out. Non of this proves your grand conspiracy though. Atleast it's a new talking point I guess.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Because we are presumably rational adults that have learned to control our actions and desires.

We don't need to reach gil cap. We don't need to set inflated prices for what we sell on the marketboard. We don't always need that latest glamour day one of release at any price when we could wait a month and the price will have dropped down to a fraction of the original as competition and supply on the marketboard increases. These are the things that lead to RMT.

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The RMT buyers don't need gil or the items they buy with it. They're breaking ToS. Blaming players who simply enjoy a large currency number for personal satisfaction and not the players who are literally breaking the rules or the developers who are meant to enforce them, is silly.

As you said, the largest purchase is 50m. No one needs a gil cap, so the players buying RMT gil are chasing something they don't need. Who cares if someone is wealthier than you? Learn to control yourself. It doesn't matter if you can play 5hr or 40hr a week, you can earn enough gil to buy anything ingame. The means to make gil are available to every player.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Inflation is actually one of the causes of ppl becoming RMT- Buyers. The larger the number the larger the temptation of just taking a shortcut. Smaller price tags will feel more easily obtainable resulting in people actually playing the game to get it.

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Currently we have massive deflation (in some cases items are 20-30 times cheaper) from HW or Stormblood compared to now, yet RMT buying and selling is absolutely rampant, so this is false.

Small price tags and bot competition mean players find it harder to make gil. Scraping pennies together from roulette, crafting and undercut wars for tiny amounts of gil per sale feel bad when you're aiming for a house or 10-50 million mount. That's where players get tempted to just skip the boring, unrewarding chores.

Bots are a SE created issue because they've demonstrated they have no power to detect player bots and will never scan your PC for them. They're practically "don't ask, don't tell". It feels bad to try and compete with that by playing by the rules when the rule breaker is rewarded. SE have been indirectly encouraging breaking ToS for a while now, you just benefit more at little risk.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The RMT buyers don't need gil or the items they buy with it. They're breaking ToS. Blaming players who simply enjoy a large currency number for personal satisfaction and not the players who are literally breaking the rules or the developers who are meant to enforce them, is silly.

As you said, the largest purchase is 50m. No one needs a gil cap, so the players buying RMT gil are chasing something they don't need. Who cares if someone is wealthier than you? Learn to control yourself. It doesn't matter if you can play 5hr or 40hr a week, you can earn enough gil to buy anything ingame. The means to make gil are available to every player.

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Time is money. The player who is limited to 8 hours a week (which is how much the average player will play a MMO per surveys) is never going to be able to acquire the same amount of gil that the player who can play 80 hours a week can earn even if they do nothing but try to earn gil. Factor in time spent on other gameplay and that gap becomes even greater.

You say the buyers are chasing something they don't need. Well, so are the sellers on the marketboard. If there was any gil cost involved in what they're selling, it's usually trivial compared to the price they're asking.

Why tell one side to learn to control themselves and not the other?

Sellers do control themselves, by not selling. If an item doesn't sell for the lowest price sellers find acceptable, then sellers will simply unlist it or not sell it in the first place. Both sides can refuse a trade they find unsatisfactory.

Time is money and sellers have no obligation to offer their time to provide items for other players. If the pay isn't worth their time, they won't sell the item which requires time to get. Buyers without enough Gil can spend their 8 hours a week farming the item for themselves.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

If one was to ignore all the usual conspiracy nonsense, this does sound like getting mad at a bakery giving away bread at the end of the day for free to friends&family of employees and being left out. Non of this proves your grand conspiracy though. Atleast it's a new talking point I guess.

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Ah, but is it really nonsense?

Anyway it would be one thing if stuff was given away to friends & family of employees etc., even on a regular basis. That's common in business. The trouble is when it delevels the playing field to the point that people start to feel like being "down with the inner circle" grants so much more that not following along with this frankly rather pernicious trend leaves them feeling like they're only getting a "lite" experience by comparison. "You're not cool unless you have the Plus membership!"

Gaming has had a problem with it for many years, to be quite frank. Combine it with FFXIV's already chronic lack of choice when it comes to player community hangouts (ones active enough to be useful in a gameplay sense, anyways) and you have even more of a problem. Given that Discord is now rolling out the built-in ability to sponsor servers (not just nitro boost them) I'm not so sure the future looks so bright either.

In general I don't think Katt's theories are particularly baseless. They might perhaps turn out to be exaggerated, but sadly I've come to similar conclusions myself over time about much of it (including the "professional raiders manipulate the PUG environment to encourage players to purchase clears" matter, which seems to be a general disease in the hobby now as WoW suffers from symptoms of similar issues). At best the symptoms clearly exist, with the only question at hand being whether the disease is being correctly diagnosed. :(

It's left me with a really sour feeling about online gaming in general, a hobby I used to love quite a lot more in the past, before greed spread from the companies to the players (at least, combined with the Discord/SM issues, enough of them to create noticeable damage to the play experience). Frankly, truth be told, I'm really already almost at the point of just giving up on MP altogether and taking my (extensive) single player game collection and "going home" so to speak, and if it wasn't for the fact that even an introvert like me can only stand solitude for so long I probably would have ...

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Originally Posted by Amarande

Ah, but is it really nonsense?

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Yes, it is nonsense. People just make dumb mistakes in PF (they do in statics aswell but that naturally isnt in public groups). There is no need for anyone to go in and sabotage groups. On top of that run sellers are small operations, they have better things to do. That's not where the big RMT money is made because you need actual people to do it instead of a legion of crafter, gatherer and eureka bots. If you have followed any of their threads, you'd know that katt is way beyond jumping at shadows and the proof presented has ranged from not understanding jokes to downright meaningless. The people in PF are often just not that good and if every group you are in sucks, then you might need to look for the common denominator. Not a lot of people will like to do that however so they are quick to blame someone else. When everything and everyone else is in on it in your eyes and only out to get you, then you might have just constructed a conspiracy theory in place of the far far more reasonable conclusion that people might just not be that good at the game. As a community we are already extremely unforgiving for mistakes in PF and I'm not excluding myself from that assessment either.

The particular hatred against content creators is especially strange. Many of them create guides specifically so that more people clear the content with as little problems as possible because the more players participate in a type of content, the more attention it can get. I completely understand not like xeno for example. But if you go down the parasocial fan to hatewatcher pipeline you have no grounds to stand on and are just desperatly searching for justification.

The accusation goes way beyond giving failed item codes to buddies, it goes as far as directly informing world first raiders of how to do mechanics and which exploits to use. When world first raiders specifically do not want that to be the case at all because that defeats the purpose of the race. A race that SE already wants as little as possible to do with because they dont want to disrupt a careful balance. In typical conspiracy theory fashion we are also flip flopping between 'SE is in on it as a whole and is purposefully creating exploits for run sellers' and 'this is purely western GMs passing on unintentional exploits to their buddies'. You cant have it both ways.

If you see evil lurking in every lobby then it really might just be better to take your leave. People clear stuff in PF all the time. It's just a gamble everytime you go in, as any single mistake at a bad time can be run ending. That's the nature of how the content is designed. Dont jump to assuming malice when incompetence is the more reasonable explanation.

A lot of people have said it basically comes down to laziness and lack of patience, and I agree with that. I also think in many cases it's not so much that people are above cheating. They just don't want to spoil their long term enjoyment of the game by circumventing part of the gameplay, and from what I've seen those players tend to be big gil earners.

Some view that part as extraneous and only want to engage with the "real" game, but they still want to have stuff....and I think that creates a lot of RMT buyers. Not all who feel that way, of course. Some do have a personal code of honor, and/or fear of consequences, but I think a significant amount of players just aren't tempted to buy gil because they see finding a way to earn gil as a challenge and are proud of the methods they've devised.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

The people in PF are often just not that good and if every group you are in sucks, then you might need to look for the common denominator. Not a lot of people will like to do that however so they are quick to blame someone else. When everything and everyone else is in on it in your eyes and only out to get you, then you might have just constructed a conspiracy theory in place of the far far more reasonable conclusion that people might just not be that good at the game. As a community we are already extremely unforgiving for mistakes in PF and I'm not excluding myself from that assessment either.

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Yeh, that's true, and the way that content has been designed lately has not been helping either (it really doesn't take that high a percentage of the PF base to have two left feet to make the whole endeavor iffy at best and too frustrating to be fun at worst, I did some math on this a while ago but got negative reactions from communities so there may have been something I missed).

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The particular hatred against content creators is especially strange. Many of them create guides specifically so that more people clear the content with as little problems as possible because the more players participate in a type of content, the more attention it can get. I completely understand not like xeno for example. But if you go down the parasocial fan to hatewatcher pipeline you have no grounds to stand on and are just desperatly searching for justification.

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Personally my thoughts on this have less to do with content creators themselves (apart from the whole phrase, "content creator." It has such a dry, capitalistic connotation compared to how creatives used to be described, as if it should be seen as job now rather than passion ...) and generally really seem an indictment of modern social media in general. Almost gone are classical discussion venues, nearly everything organizes it around some or other content creator's "channel" now (contrast, say, GameFAQs' format where guide writers were sometimes but not always active on the game's board, but in any case, the board was first and foremost about the game, whereas in modern SM it is increasingly a personal fandom group first and foremost. This also doubtless has negative effects on the industry as well, with how many customers are often there because of their favorite streamer, so if a publisher fails to retain the streamer's interest, it's a big deal!).

I miss the old school, not so crazy game culture. I don't know where you might find it anymore, or even if it's possible to run these days or if in fact platform trust and safety mindset has, in fact, already caused too much damage to hobby society to be reparable :(

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The accusation goes way beyond giving failed item codes to buddies, it goes as far as directly informing world first raiders of how to do mechanics and which exploits to use. When world first raiders specifically do not want that to be the case at all because that defeats the purpose of the race. A race that SE already wants as little as possible to do with because they dont want to disrupt a careful balance.

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That is likely over the top indeed. Neither SE nor even Blizzard seem inclined to engage in such conduct (SE on principle, Blizzard because half the time they don't even know what the Mythic mechanics balance is even supposed to be until the world first teams start attempting it and hit brick walls ... lol).

Though, to be fair, there is the inevitable Discord datamine during the hours before servers come up for a patch, which SE seems (apart from the post-TEA kerfuffle) to do very little to enforce against despite datamining being specifically proscribed under TOS. On the flip side with so much being server side, I'm not sure how useful that actually is to Savage prog, though.

Also objectively, a lot of the middle tier players (myself included) have felt for a while like they are actively being cut loose by the game, and that the duality of "super casual play with largely silent player interaction" and "hyperprofessional e-sports cadre" is, in fact, intended - and there's some evidence now that that's the case (especially, the hope that V&C dungeons were going to help fill these intermediate skill voids, and instead turned out to be just another Savage and semi-Ultimate for the big shots).

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If you see evil lurking in every lobby then it really might just be better to take your leave. People clear stuff in PF all the time. It's just a gamble everytime you go in, as any single mistake at a bad time can be run ending. That's the nature of how the content is designed. Dont jump to assuming malice when incompetence is the more reasonable explanation.

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Yeah, for me it's really more basically just frustration over the culture, and a seeming lack of options to get away from "the culture" compared to the olden days of gaming, without feeling like you have to give up the game altogether as well :(

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Originally Posted by DragonFlyy

However part of me wonders what ppl actually buy gil from RMT for in this game aside from wanting a large or medium housing plot as doing MSQ on a new character will generate enough gil to make a small obtainable unless spent foolishly or buying those golden mounts from NPC vendors. Are ppl actually just dumping it into stuff on the marketboard?

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I did once interact more with big crafters... they were offered like 400mil for a full set of the new crafted stuff for hte whole static... even divided through 8, thats still a lot for something so... throwaway?

I think it's a mix of different aspects

a) Gil is way too cheap because SE lacks in engagement to really get rid of bots (most of them anyway)

b) People that buy Gil don't get punished

Now, realistically speaking if you did "a" and "b" properly there would almost be zero buyers BUT you face a different issue
and that is the decline of players. Some people will say that is justified because they're lazy, toxic or had it comming but
IMO there is a specific issue to Gil farming that is prevailing in almost if not all MMOs and that is: it's frigging boring and annoying

You have to learn a job you don't care about, to do something that is boring to most people and then join some youtube academy to analyze the market on 12 live tracking websites
or you have to grind hundreds of mobs again and again and again and again, like a bot. Most people come home from work and the last thing they wanna think about is "Finally home, time to do some boring 3 hours of farm which I frigging hate".

MMOs have an big issue where they always hide currency behind some boring grind, where the only people to pop out and defend it are the people that have every
farm job on max with 300 servants.

I argue if "a" and "b" would be enforced and there would be a farm method that is easy to access for everybody, enjoyable and profitable (static wise) almost nobody would ever buy Gil.

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Originally Posted by drtasteyummy

I think it's a mix of different aspects

a) Gil is way too cheap because SE lacks in engagement to really get rid of bots (most of them anyway)

b) People that buy Gil don't get punished

Now, realistically speaking if you did "a" and "b" properly there would almost be zero buyers BUT you face a different issue
and that is the decline of players. Some people will say that is justified because they're lazy, toxic or had it comming but
IMO there is a specific issue to Gil farming that is prevailing in almost if not all MMOs and that is: it's frigging boring and annoying

You have to learn a job you don't care about, to do something that is boring to most people and then join some youtube academy to analyze the market on 12 live tracking websites
or you have to grind hundreds of mobs again and again and again and again, like a bot. Most people come home from work and the last thing they wanna think about is "Finally home, time to do some boring 3 hours of farm which I frigging hate".

MMOs have an big issue where they always hide currency behind some boring grind, where the only people to pop out and defend it are the people that have every
farm job on max with 300 servants.

I argue if "a" and "b" would be enforced and there would be a farm method that is easy to access for everybody, enjoyable and profitable (static wise) almost nobody would ever buy Gil.

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This right here is the solution to it all, couldnt have said it better myself

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Why tell one side to learn to control themselves and not the other?

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Quite simply because one side is earning something legitimately in-game and the other is breaking ToS.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a pile of game money. I like my own pile of gil, but irl I care nothing about wealth or increased QoL or materialistic values. If I have enough for basic comfort I'm happy. Similarly in-game it's just there for personal satisfaction, that "I earned this" feeling. I don't show off with it, I'll give it away to people I like or use it for FC events. I disagree that I'm morally in the wrong because someone who doesn't want to make any effort is jealous of something I earned fairly that simply gives me satisfaction.
Similarly if someone else wants gil for whatever reason, personal items, to simply make a big pile and sit on it, or to treat others, I'd never judge them for it. Just don't break ToS or make someone else unhappy over it.

Yes, someone who plays 80 hours has an advantage, but it's a meaningless advantage that's just fun. Everyone has access to the means to make enough gil to buy everything even on limited time.

Economically gil hoarders also reduce inflation by removing large sums of gil from the economy over time but not injecting it back. They make items more available because they provide the supply and compete with one another, lowering prices.

The only people to blame are the ones who break rules and SE for not enforcing them. If SE wanted to cut the gil cap, delete everyone's money and give everyone a 1m a week allowance or whatever else to even the playing field it's their game and then anyone not following that would be at fault. But right now, the players who are following ToS and playing the game by simply selling items they made by legitimate means are not at fault.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

The base desire for people to RMT is Laziness.

Has nothing to do with the economy of the game, its a person being too lazy to earn it that they would rather just pay.

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I agree completely. The first rule to making money on the market board is people do not buy the item. They buy the convenience and time they save. The gil involved is simply a measure on how much the person is willing to pay for the time to aquire said item.

I will note however, regulated markets never work. Just look at history for all the proof you need.

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Originally Posted by WP1990

I agree completely. The first rule to making money on the market board is people do not buy the item. They buy the convenience and time they save. The gil involved is simply a measure on how much the person is willing to pay for the time to aquire said item.

I will note however, regulated markets never work. Just look at history for all the proof you need.

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It's actually the inverse, unregulated markets end in a massive accumulation of wealth at the top and a huge disparity between the haves and have nots. It's not a real economy but the ffxiv economy is basically at this spot where people have multiple stacks of max gil on characters and are asking for a gil sink to spend money on to have some use for it, while others struggle to scrape together enough to get crafted gear to do the new savage raids.
It doesn't help either that there are no skips for crafter or gatherer jobs like there are combat jobs. So, making your own gear requires you to get your crafting jobs to level 90, pentameld the current BiS crafting and gathering gear, then you can make a set of gear for yourself to start to prog savage. Levelling your non combat jobs is a long and costly process for players to catch up with and has quite a bit of investment before you can get to it paying off.

Honestly that's where most of the RMT is happenning, people want to raid, you can't raid week 1 unless you get pentamelded crafted gear, and that costs about 10-15 million gil per set. you either have your crafters levelled and geared to BiS to make your own or you pay up enough for it off the market board.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It's actually the inverse, unregulated markets end in a massive accumulation of wealth at the top and a huge disparity between the haves and have nots. It's not a real economy but the ffxiv economy is basically at this spot where people have multiple stacks of max gil on characters and are asking for a gil sink to spend money on to have some use for it, while others struggle to scrape together enough to get crafted gear to do the new savage raids.
It doesn't help either that there are no skips for crafter or gatherer jobs like there are combat jobs. So, making your own gear requires you to get your crafting jobs to level 90, pentameld the current BiS crafting and gathering gear, then you can make a set of gear for yourself to start to prog savage. Levelling your non combat jobs is a long and costly process for players to catch up with and has quite a bit of investment before you can get to it paying off.

Honestly that's where most of the RMT is happenning, people want to raid, you can't raid week 1 unless you get pentamelded crafted gear, and that costs about 10-15 million gil per set. you either have your crafters levelled and geared to BiS to make your own or you pay up enough for it off the market board.

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You should research economic policy with failed empires before you talk about regulated markets. I will say no more on that specific matter.

I will state my opinion as an omnicrafter myself. You are talking about 1 specific part of the market. (High end content markets) Back in the day that market had so few omnicrafters but now they game is saturated with omnicrafters because it's fairly easy to max your crafters now. I assure you due to the cutthroat nature of that specific market, the risk involved and the low throughput opportunities in that specific section. The smart gil makers/ RMT botters in the game do not actively use High End Content Markets to generate gil. It's simply not worth their time due to the saturation of competition. Spend some time in Eureka and Bozjan if you think I'm blowing smoke.

In respect to RMT my basic principle remains true. "People buy convenience." Hence they are lazy. The solution is in the qoute itself. SE needs to do one of the following but we all know they will choose the one that makes them the most profit.
1: IP ban the gold buyers
Or
2:Ban the gold buyers

But we all know it's not good business to let a new game key go to waste.