Proposal: HQ mat-to-HQ mat conversion of 100%

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

I've crafted enough to know that trying to marry more than one level up is a waste of time in this system where NQ goes in the trash 90% of the time. If your goal is a dozen +3 ingots for 4 shots at a +3 mortar, the level cap will raise before you accomplish that with NQ iron ore. You'll make a ton of +1s and some +2's. But in the end what is a +1 ingot. Nothing.

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Again, no. You do not need all HQ3 ingots to make a HQ3mortar. And +1/+2 ingot can net you a HQ3 mortar. Especially when dealing with a finished item, 200/300 + quality is possible to get the item you are looking for.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Crafters who don't want 650 quality to talk know they won't be able to get their hands on it if it does because they were too lazy to level the gathering job that supports their crafting and instead chose to level another craft to double their profits.

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So your saying you can hit 650 quality on a synth using HQ3 mats. That means you can hit 450 using HQ1 mats. If you think that is an insufficient level in order to HQ3 a finished item when you have 'touch up' at your disposal thenI don't know what else to say. That's just false.

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Originally Posted by AmyRae

Difficulty and risk adds value, however. All the easy-to-make make items in FFXI were practically worthless. Make it easy to HQ, and you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. If it's really hard and risky to make a +3 item, then it's really worth something that will fetch a great price, especially since they'll also be rare.

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Mindless grinding is no substitute for difficulty and risk, and that's what you're asking it to be.

You're not going to be able to HQ if HQ becomes easy. You will be able to HQ low level piddle stuff better, but who cares about those things? At the upper tiers where it matters it will become harder. Why? Because if 600 quality makes +3 items reliably, you won't be able to afford the +3 materials required to pump quality that high. The market will adjust. Instead of NQ iron ore being 2k each and +3 iron ore being 5k each, NQ ore will be 2k each and +3 ore will be 50k each.

You'd pay 5 million gil for a set of 99 iron nugget+3s with great conversion rates to metal part+3s. Then you'd get your standard HQ conversion rate of making a final product.

I'd rather pay good money for quality products that make quality products than plow a ton of **** into greatness by sheer mulish stubborness.

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Originally Posted by Crimzon

So your saying you can hit 650 quality on a synth using HQ3 mats. That means you can hit 450 using HQ1 mats. If you think that is an insufficient level in order to HQ3 a finished item when you have 'touch up' at your disposal thenI don't know what else to say. That's just false.

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You can't touch up a part, and you were talking about parts. Steel mortar+3 is a R46 armorer synth. If you don't start with over 200 quality, you're not going to be making a +3 mortar. Period. The second you put a single +1 material into that synth is the second you resign yourself of ever getting a +3. That's just how endgame synths are. You act like you're still dinking around with R30 synths where you can put whatever you want into the vat and bold up the remainder.

Midlevel mentality does not apply to endgame synths. For these synths, the quality you start with is largely the quality you end with. Aeolian swords. Steel mortars. Thermal alembic.

If you think you can +3 a steel mortar and thermal alembic with +1 mats you just don't know the system that well.

You are mistaken. An you can use Bold a lot on high level synths. But you dont want to waste your time getting the abilities that help you to do that.

If you dont think it's possible to raise a R46 synth 150 points from where you start off in quality, then not only are you a fool, you're also a shitty crafter.

Well you believe in the heart of the cards then, which is why you petition for mindlessly taking a shot in hell at what you want to accomplish, over, and over, and over, and over.

No, I would just rather not make HQ3ing everything easymode. I dont want to see the HQ3 market go the way of the NQ/HQ1 and soon to be HQ2 market. There will be nothing left for crafters to profit from if you alter %s of Hq rates to the point where you can rely on hitting a certain Quality # to give you an HQ3.

The market will flood just like it is with lower quality gear. There always has to be those synths that are very rare to accomplish. I WANT HQ3ing an item to feel special and rare and I want it to be worth my time to do so.

In FFXI it was HQing tier 0 synths. In this game its the elusive HQ3. It's not meant to be easy.

You continue to fail to comprehend just how expensive HQ mats would be if "HQ'ing were easy."

Why? Because you think it takes THAT much time to raise a gathering job to the point where you can gather tier 5 nodes? Because it doesn't.

Even if you do gold ore+3 isn't easy. How many ebony log+3s do you have. Mr. 44?

They removed Ebony Trees from the game. But like any other tree I log, If you log for an hour or so, you will end up with quite a few +3 of that log.

Again, heart of the cards. You can get 150 synthing quality by bolding a R46 synth with only a mishmashing of R20 crafting abilities (let me guess: masterpiece lol...). You can get "quite a few" +3's R40+ materials in an hour in spite of the mechanics that say no, you can't.

Why, I can hit red-check crabs for 1200 damage. I can get 100 gold ore in a single session!

Really now. Epeening already.

I dont follow?

I rank botany T5's in Coerthas. The 3 trees in that area are Yew, Pine and Oak. You can ask any Botanist and they will give you the same answer. All 3 of those logs+3 are easy to acquire.

I dont pretend to know how gold ore works because I am not a miner but I am not lying about the Botany.

If all it took to reliably craft +3 items was +3 logs, the price would crash and crash quickly.

Peregrine, nobody agrees with you.

I'm not sure you noticed the fact that nobody agrees with you, but I'll illustrate it a second time just in case: Nobody agrees with you. You can continue your spoiled "omg I played hot and cold for 50,000 hours so I deserve more than someone who didn't" spiel all you want, but each time you repeat it you sound more self centered, silly and childish.

Time investment is time investment, saying that someone else doesn't deserve something because they didn't invest their time the way you think they should have is sophomoric and immature.

Thus, you are sophomoric and immature for saying such.

In short, get stuffed.

Please respond with a nearly verbatim copy of your previous TL;DR posts.

Highest rank on your logs is is R32??? Mythril ore is our R35. We hard cap at 1 mythril ore per gather, and its diffusely spread around the world at a rare rate. I never try to specifically go for mythril ore, but I probably have 30 +3s total in all of my mining so far.

And I don't expect dime a dozen crafters who this system allows to keep up to agree with me.
The problem with crab bows, Ist, is that there are too many crafters like you and the system keeps them far too competitive.

I dont know what you mean by R32 log? What log should i base my judgement off then? Im naming wood that is used in the highest recipes for Carpentry currently.

Im arguing my point based off of the system that is in place. If you raised the HQ3 rates based off of HQ3 mats, then all of the wood that is used in the recipes woodworkers use to make R40+ gear would be easy to get +3 logs of.

I dont know how else to base it? How am I supposed to tell you how easy it is to log an Ebony log+3? There are no Ebony trees.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

And I don't expect dime a dozen crafters who this system allows to keep up to agree with me.
The problem with crab bows, Ist, is that there are too many crafters like you and the system keeps them far too competitive.

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As I keep pointing out, you don't understand economics and you're taking a short sighted viewpoint to try and get a little greedy money in your pockets. Obvious ploy is obvious. This idea is hilariously poorly thought out. Seriously, have you even tried to look at the long term ramifications with this? Obviously not.

Seriously dude, you are trying too hard and it's really obvious that greed is motivating your posting. You aren't trying to help anything other than your own pockets. Go away and stop posting.

You can't base it off anything I guess. Maybe a grip shouldn't be as important as a head in the synths. Maybe they aren't I haven't gotten access to enough +2 and +3 grips to see. Goldsmithing is dominated by raws that are R40 and 50 and are all hard-capped at 1 per gather. Sounds like everything in woodworking is the equivalent of iron. Cheap, plentiful, low rank, and hard capped at 3, which is prime plowing for drone crafters. Sit them in front of a pile of 1000 ores and they'll happily pull that lever for hours and hours.

Now, the HQ scene in goldsmithing is pointless, but both iron and woodworking economies need to change. This is a pyramid scheme meant to catch as many suckers as it can up in synth after synth after synth, and you all are buying right into it without a thought. How many of you all are spamming crab bows? All of you. Can't tell you how many composite bow grips I've made for people trying to spam their way to a lottery win, except the money is worthless. Day in and day out. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow +1. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow +1. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow +1. Crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow. Ask me to make 10 more horn grips....crab bow. Crab bow. Crab bow +2!!!!....Crab bow...crab bow...

When you honestly believe you can make up for a lack of talent by trying twice as hard, there is no end to what you can't accomplish. Crab bow...crab bow...

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Originally Posted by Solipse

As I keep pointing out, you don't understand economics and you're taking a short sighted viewpoint to try and get a little greedy money in your pockets. Obvious ploy is obvious. This idea is hilariously poorly thought out. Seriously, have you even tried to look at the long term ramifications with this? Obviously not.

Seriously dude, you are trying too hard and it's really obvious that greed is motivating your posting. You aren't trying to help anything other than your own pockets. Go away and stop posting.

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You're a low production value crafter who is defending a low production value system. Crab bows are worth about what you are, so don't complain. That's your reality. You chose it.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

When you honestly believe you can make up for a lack of talent by trying twice as hard, there is no end to what you can't accomplish. Crab bow...crab bow...

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It's much easier to whine twice as hard, right?

Seriously though, you've convinced me that mining is where the true skill is at. As soon as the game comes back up, I'm gonna get to mining because that's the only hard thing in the game. Obviously botany isn't hard because you can get multiple logs in a swing. Fishing isn't hard either because you don't even have to RUN, I mean, running is the hardest part of the game, right?

I've just lost all sense of self worth and I have to make up for it by playing hot and cold for the next 5000 hours like my idol Peregrine.

That's really your only option. Everyone had the same idea you did: spam crafting to high level. Get people to bring you mats. Profit off all your R50 craft jobs like a god. But you're not a god. You're common. Now that you hit the ceiling, you're not only common you're fading. Until you level botany, you are among the worst R50 alchemists and carpenters on your server because you can't make up for that lack of quality selection and you're honestly not worth feeding it to.

You aren't even in the same league as a carpenter and alchemist with botany levelled. There are 0 HQ ores and logs on wutai markets. Why? Because players like you are a dime a dozen and you all pick and scavenge. As gatherers gain more power, prices are going to reflect that.

And a R40 blacksmith who can't mine iron lake...you're one of those smiths that I sell your own HQ hammers to I bet.

What an all-purpose leech. Can I have your ore? Can I have your logs? Can I have your bugs? Can I have your moraines? Can I have your bolls? I'll give you....a NQ crab bow!

Are you kidding me? Grow the hell up. This is a game. That's it... No need to go about slapping each other over such a thing. This game needs adjustment, not childish arguments. There is nothing wrong with more competition. The reason why I hated FFXI economy at first was because everybody was monopolizing the gear. If anyone from Siren server knows Quizatsa, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

The only thing I'm concerned with is the difficulty of the HQ++ items. Right now the Quality is loopy in my mind and needs to be adjusted. It needs to be based on skill & luck rather than just luck. The most difficult things should revolve more around luck. Haha, I'm confusing myself. Sorry.

Point is we're not going to find any alternative if we keep having a cat fight over every topic. Shut up, act like an adult, and discuss different points of view that you can use to further develop a better crafting concept.

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Originally Posted by Kimahri

Are you kidding me? Grow the hell up. This is a game. That's it... No need to go about slapping each other over such a thing. This game needs adjustment, not childish arguments. There is nothing wrong with more competition. The reason why I hated FFXI economy at first was because everybody was monopolizing the gear. If anyone from Siren server knows Quizatsa, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

The only thing I'm concerned with is the difficulty of the HQ++ items. Right now the Quality is loopy in my mind and needs to be adjusted. It needs to be based on skill & luck rather than just luck. The most difficult things should revolve more around luck. Haha, I'm confusing myself. Sorry.

Point is we're not going to find any alternative if we keep having a cat fight over every topic. Shut up, act like an adult, and discuss different points of view that you can use to further develop a better crafting concept.

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Oh, I agree with you. My last post was total sarcasm - the guy just doesn't get it (as his last post showed) and I was having a little fun. ;)

Back to the point, though, you're absolutely right about HQ chances, at least for materials. The problem, though, is that that CANNOT be the first change they make. If that were the first change, it would bottom out the entire economy to the point that gil was completely worthless.

Case in point:
If I can make an HQ+3 weapon in 10 tries with HQ+2 mats, whereas right now it takes 20 HQ+3 mats, then price of materials will drop to probably 8% of current prices because people won't need as many of those to make their items. When prices get that cheap, it will cost next to nothing to craft to a HQ+3 weapon aside from 10 minutes of someone's time to do those 10 combines, and so within a month, everyone is going to be strolling around with HQ+3 items. Extending that out even further, within a month of THAT, +3 items will be so commonplace and overproduced that THOSE will be just as unsellable as NQ items are currently.

What needs to happen, roughly in this order:

1) Materials consumption needs to remain high so that gathering continues to be viable.
2) A positive-reinforcement approach needs to be implemented for removing gear from the economy ( see http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-are-Worthless ).
3) Sub material synthesis HQ rates need to be tweaked. ( again, see http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ute-for-HQ-ing ).

There are certainly more steps, but think for a minute about where the economy will be at this point:

1) Material costs actually INCREASE from where they are right now: you will see yew logs back up to 10k. Since even NQ materials can, in great enough quantity, eventually find their way into a piece of a +3 or better synthesis, the max ranked crafters will utilize those in item synthesis. In other words, if your server is like most, using the yew log example, what you will see in your retainer ward are 1200 NQ yew logs for 2-3k, maybe a couple +1 yew logs for 10k or more and on rare circumstances a +2 or +3 yew log for 30k+. If, following 2) above, there were a way for NQ materials to have a use in making truly endgame items, then NQ materials will increase in value. Right now they are falling in value because they have no endgame use. In this case, EVERYTHING has a use endgame.

2) Removing gear from the economy means that there is not a huge influx of NQ gear being sold for ridiculously small prices. Talk to an r50 archer who upgraded an NQ crab bow to an HQ crab bow and ask them what they were able to sell their NQ for. They're lucky if they can get more than 30-50k for it right now because they are so overproduced. Further, because there is no gear leaving the economy, since they are so overproduced the market is flooded with people trying to undercut the other guy. The only reason this hasn't expanded to +2/+3 items at this point is specifically BECAUSE they are so difficult to create. If HQ rates were just blanket upped, then +2/+3 items would become just as worthless just as quickly.

3) Higher quality end results should be relatively difficult to obtain. The primary problem with the current HQ system is that certain materials carry a geometric progression of difficulty to create. The example I used in the post I linked in 3) above were iron plates. Right now it takes about 12 million gil worth of materials to have a mathematically significant chance of obtaining just a single iron plate +3. This means that anything using those materials is unrealistic to +2/+3. Now, when you take the best blacksmith or alchemist mainhand tools and compare them to something like a crab bow with easy-to-obtain +3 materials, it's pretty obvious to see that these particular classes are held at a disadvantage solely because of the materials that were placed within their tools.

I'd love to get some actual discussion on these topics, here, trust me. The other guy is just so fundamentally wrong due to not understanding basic economic concepts, and is so unwilling/unable to understand where his understanding is breaking down, that it's pretty pointless to carry on a serious discussion with him.

You keep trying to hold ground as a crafter who is simply too lazy to gather quality materials, and it will never work. You will always be in a state of production overload.

Increase the power of the quality of materials. Decrease the power of low quality materials. HQ mats will become more expensive. NQ materials won't be used to make 500 crab bows a day because it's pointless to waste good NQ product on NQ bows. That solves your overproduction problem. NQs will be sold to grinders. HQs will be sold to crafters. HQ rates go up for the best crafters. They go down for the majority who scrounge for poor-quality materials for a living.

Which they should. A town crafter is like a Marmot. Everywhere.

People here seem to think a R50 crafter is something special still and that you all deserve epic things. You deserve no more notoriety than a R50 pugilist in this game. That's the price you pay for not being suppressed in your craft like in XI. In this game, +3 ore should be worth more than you are as a R50 crafter, because you're more common than +3 ore is. Sorry.

The game is in a state of overproduction of gear because of a glut of crafters all with the capability of +1 and 2'ing gear with low-quality materials.

Remove that ability from their hands.

It is a fact, just as the stat allotment system has created stats that by default have to have very little impact, that the ease at which crafters can level has created crafters that by default HAVE TO have very little impact or the economy turns to this. Again, you are not special. You are not unique. Your power in crafting has to reflect how common you actually are.

Just as shining cloth used to be worth more than a clothcrafter in XI because it was less common, the only solution for what ails the economy is to label common common and rare rare. Not let common act rare and rare be nerfed to common because it makes crafters feel SPECIAL when they are not. That's what we're doing now and it makes no sense.

The solution is to give gatherers equal status to battlers and crafters. If you want to be a good crafter, you need battlers to kill for +3 drops. Right? So why all the elitism against gatherers and THEIR +3 materials?

Well, because many of you all aren't one. That's why. No other reason but self-interest. A lot of crafters aren't interested in real balance. They just want to hold their positions.

Gatherers are not a above crafters and vise-versa. Gatherers / crafters are the same as a sole gatherer, and crafter, with the exception of an abundance of hq mats at their disposal. Does that entitle them to be the only crafters who should make +3 items? Hell no. Every r50 should have a crack at it, it might take longer to make it. But they should have a chance at it. While the gatherers / crafters has the possibility to make that item quicker, and that is your reward for ranking up a gathering class.

When we see a change in the hq system, is when servers will see more gatherers being ranked up. And no longer will hq mats be in the wards. For now the barter system is working as it should, for gatherers and crafters alike.

Nq mats should be for grinders, however r50 should always have a chance to hq nq mats. They earned all the skill points for max rank, they should be able to do the seemingly impossible.

I personally like the current system, it keeps the +3 weapons / tools rare, and sought after. Though I'm biased, since I already made a crab bow +3 (made with +1/2 and +3 mats), and working on my list of other +3's I want to make.

Don't really see how your point about DoL classes holds water into your topics. As I see it, DoL farms up raw materials. Why do you feel more deserving than someone who would rather just buy the materials? So far what I hear is that you get the materials at a cost of time. He/She obtains it at a cost of gil.

DoL should in no way influence the synthesis other than the fact that it gathers up the raw materials for the synthesis. NQ or HQ. You're not better than everyone else because your miner is R50 as well.

Sure I am. I have access to any HQ mining mat I want via unrestricted free will, and it goes into my quality inputs. Crafters can't compete with that quality boost with any abilities (keep in mind that I AM two endgame crafters and know when you're lying). They're dependent on either the markets or "friends" and by friends I mean people they're essentially using. No crafter can give me anything in return for hundreds of iron or gold ore. Gear repairs? Weapons and tools I can just buy? No. Miners don't do that any more. This isn't october. They mine for themselves. Not for gil. Not for you. Sucks for many posters in here that like you, RMT decided it wasn't worth their time to gather. Now you're really screwed.

As much as you may claim that you can find iron ore+3 easily, I know you can't. I buy all the HQ ores on the market whenever I'm in there looking for tin ores, and there are hardly any ever on sale. So you're free to buy HQ materials if you want. But you're living in a hypothetical world. In your world I'm not better than every other smith because they get access to the mats that I have with their gil. In the real world no. They don't. Don't try to lie to me lol...I try to do exactly what you wish you did because I have too much gil that I want to conver to mats myself. And I can't. Because they're not there.

First generation crafters just don't get it. And they won't get it until it stares them in the face that they are out of a job until they level a gatherer. It's coming. Can't avoid it. I know you all rode all your bubbles and made all your millions from september to december with easy mats, and you decided not to gather because that means you'd fall off your crafting bubble.

But that's over. Done. Town crafters are inferior crafters. They shoot each other in the feet scavenging the wards and their friends for hand me down materials, and their quality shows it.

You can't fight this. It's coming regardless. We might as well put this system out of its misery. Enhance the power of quality. Enhance the retention of quality. Quality's price will skyrocket and rebalance this mess.

Does that mean you won't be able to afford +3 ores? Yes. Get to work.

@Peregrine: Ok, your arguments are interesting, but your idea that a crafter who does not gather is just using other people is fundamentally flawed in one major respect. As crafter who enjoys gathering, I put off actively leveling gathering jobs because I don't need them right now. My LS gives me so many mats, its ridiculous. This. Does. Not. Mean. I. Am. Using. Them. I find it offensive that you suggest as much. I am lucky enough to be in a large LS with ties to other large LSs. We have our own little micro economy within the LS, as well as regular events in which DoW/DoM get together with our DoL/DoH and we do a free exchange of items. Mats for mats. Gear for gear. Gear for mats. It has nothing to do with anyone using anyone. It has to do with friends helping each other out. We play this game together. As a team. Cooperatively. Whats wrong with that? Nothing. So please, continue the arguments, but not at the expense of others, because you are right - there is an advantage to being able to go out and get whatever HQ mats you want. But you are also wrong - those of us who don't aren't inherently using people just to lengthen our own e-peens.

Also, there is a significant issue in that items do not leave the market. It may not be the SOLE solution to fix this synting/gathering, but it would HELP. If items were somehow encouraged to leave the market at the same market demand, the value of the remaining items would increase. If the encouragement for items leaving the market was high enough that demand went up, the value of items would increase even further because the reward for items leaving the market exceed current market value (An example of this would be if shards were NPC vendorable at 2k gil, the market price of shards would increase to 2k or higher.)

Another problem, again not the SOLE problem, is that +3 base mats mean little or nothing. When my HQ rate using NQ mats is the same as the HQ rate using HQ mats, then no, I don't need to be, nor do I need a gather in the grand scheme of things. Is it supposed to be this way? I doubt it. It should be easier to get HQ with HQ mats. As you say, the "power of quality" does need to be enhanced.

That does not mean that "town crafters" are somehow inferior. The fact is that they are needed. The play a vital part in keeping the economy healthy. If every crafter always gathered their own mats, there would be no economy to speak of. Everyone would be reduced to selling just finished products. And I'm sorry, people being people as they are would trend towards only buying a few select items that are optimal for their job, and that means would see even a more marked trending towards only specific gear being made, because nothing else is selling.

The fact is that some people like crafting but don't like gathering. Some people like gathering but don't like crafting. Some people don't like either, and like DoW and DoM. Varied people make for varied tastes, and that's a good thing. If we were all clones of each other this would be a pretty boring game. This Personal preference also does not make any of them inferior to the others.

What it does is create multiple markets. It adds depth to the economy and encourages people to play the way they like to play. And this is game. People play to have fun and do what they LIKE. The system accommodates this with the multiple markets and makes It makes it so that a crafter - ANY CRAFTER - is equal to every other crafter. It makes it so that a gatherer is equal to every other gather.

It doesn't matter what OTHER jobs you have. What matters is that an R50 is equal to an R50 of the same job. HOW they play is up to them.

In short, keep the debate going. You do have a lot of valid points. They are interesting. Please stop insulting other people's play styles. Its starting to get irksome, and detracts from actually solving the issue.

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Originally Posted by Kimahri

Okay. Yet one more douchebag I'm adding to my ignore list right now. This dude just rants and cries like a baby.

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Holy crap, there's an ignore list. You are my hero.

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Originally Posted by Origamikitsune

What it does is create multiple markets. It adds depth to the economy and encourages people to play the way they like to play. And this is game. People play to have fun and do what they LIKE. The system accommodates this with the multiple markets and makes It makes it so that a crafter - ANY CRAFTER - is equal to every other crafter. It makes it so that a gatherer is equal to every other gather.

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That's my problem with the thing's he's saying - he wants to penalize people for not playing the game how he likes to play the game. That kind of thinking is almost never valid and usually amounts to self centered statements that are essentially meant to reward the person making them.

I think, at this state in the game, with the massive development that SE is doing, the only sane and logical attitude to have is to focus on the problems that plague _everyone_ - as you said, and as I've been saying, the largest economic problem right now is that nothing ever leaves the economy; that means that nothing ever really goes up in price, only down. If you can get 6m gil for an item this week, you better jump on it, because you'll probably only get 5.5 next week, and so on.

To use an analogy, imagine that cars did not actually consume the gasoline in their tanks. Once everyone had a full tank of gas, they'd never need to buy another until they bought a new car. After a long enough time, with people pulling billions of gallons of oil out of the ground, we'd hit a point where consumption would drop down to a low level (never quite zero, though) and the gas stations would have to fight constantly to undercut everyone else so that in the rare case that someone, somewhere needed some gas, they'd surely buy from them.

In a game where crafting is such a huge deal and huge part of the fundamental system, that kind of setup is almost counter intuitive. Essentially, unless you're one of the first to max level, you may as well not bother because you're going to invest in a massive money and time sink with no hope of reward on the horizon.

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Originally Posted by Solipse

as I've been saying, the largest economic problem right now is that nothing ever leaves the economy; that means that nothing ever really goes up in price, only down.

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Indeed. This is a fundamental concept about our economy that cannot be ignored. In another game like EVE, which is also very craft-heavy, the items are always leaving the economy because they are consumed or destroyed.

The only items in FF14 that ever permanently leave are consumables like food and ammo. That's about it.

The concept of gear being permanently destroyed is a bit of an implausible possibility, however.

How many ways can things like gear leave the economy, anyway?

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

The concept of gear being permanently destroyed is a bit of an implausible possibility, however.

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Right. This is penalizing people for playing the game - something almost every review and negative association of 14 talks about. The fatigue system in general penalizes you increasingly more the more you play. For players to feel proud about items they possess, they can't be 'throw away' items that you don't care if they don't last a week. If nothing lasts more than a week, then there is little to no reason to spend more than the minimal effort on acquiring those items.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

How many ways can things like gear leave the economy, anyway?

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Lots. Some off the top of my head:

1) The original idea I pitched in the other thread with combining items.
2) A system where you can use NQ items to enhance, in some way, another item.
3) Some system that allows you to create new items from combinations of different items (the example I used before was a culinarian combining a bowl of soup, a salad and a sandwich).
4) Some kind of enchanting system similar to WoW's (but hopefully much more intricate and involved).
5) Some kind of sacrifice system, even if it's only for a certain class: ie a monk type class that sacrifices items to their god to regenerate some form of special mana/tp to power certain abilities.
6) Some rank of incapacitating attacks, much more powerful than any of the current incapacitates, that is powered by items the player's current class can use, especially weapons (ie, a gladiator can perform some crazy technique to incap something by breaking a sword during an attack).
7) Donating items to NPC for some kind of boon, such as guardian's favor of a power and length in line with the value of the item donated.
8) Create raidable moghouses that are protected by guards that you can arm with equipment to defend your loot (this kind of system would require world PVP, though, so unlikely).
9) Perhaps the simplest, and solves two problems with one implementation - allow the rank of equipment sacrificed to increase the chance of getting marks from the next local leve you hand by some %.

These are just off the top of my head. Really, there is no logical limit for the number of ways gear can leave the system, essentially, think of some buff or boon that players could use or currently need. If you can find a way to give that boon or buff by sacrificing equipment, then congrats, you've found a feasible solution. ;)

Hmm, interesting.

In games like Final Fantasy Tactics, weapons were turned into consumables via the Samurai skill that breaks swords, and the Ninja's "Throw" attack.

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Originally Posted by Solipse

Holy crap, there's an ignore list. You are my hero.

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"I can be your hero, Baby! I can kiss away the pain. You can take.....My breath away!"

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Originally Posted by Solipse

Right. This is penalizing people for playing the game - something almost every review and negative association of 14 talks about. The fatigue system in general penalizes you increasingly more the more you play. For players to feel proud about items they possess, they can't be 'throw away' items that you don't care if they don't last a week. If nothing lasts more than a week, then there is little to no reason to spend more than the minimal effort on acquiring those items.



Lots. Some off the top of my head:

1) The original idea I pitched in the other thread with combining items.
2) A system where you can use NQ items to enhance, in some way, another item.
3) Some system that allows you to create new items from combinations of different items (the example I used before was a culinarian combining a bowl of soup, a salad and a sandwich).
4) Some kind of enchanting system similar to WoW's (but hopefully much more intricate and involved).
5) Some kind of sacrifice system, even if it's only for a certain class: ie a monk type class that sacrifices items to their god to regenerate some form of special mana/tp to power certain abilities.
6) Some rank of incapacitating attacks, much more powerful than any of the current incapacitates, that is powered by items the player's current class can use, especially weapons (ie, a gladiator can perform some crazy technique to incap something by breaking a sword during an attack).
7) Donating items to NPC for some kind of boon, such as guardian's favor of a power and length in line with the value of the item donated.
8) Create raidable moghouses that are protected by guards that you can arm with equipment to defend your loot (this kind of system would require world PVP, though, so unlikely).
9) Perhaps the simplest, and solves two problems with one implementation - allow the rank of equipment sacrificed to increase the chance of getting marks from the next local leve you hand by some %.

These are just off the top of my head. Really, there is no logical limit for the number of ways gear can leave the system, essentially, think of some buff or boon that players could use or currently need. If you can find a way to give that boon or buff by sacrificing equipment, then congrats, you've found a feasible solution. ;)

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A desynth system would help, if there were less items generated from the desynth than were used to make the item originally.

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Originally Posted by origamikitsune

A desynth system would help, if there were less items generated from the desynth than were used to make the item originally.

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I'm curious how you feel that would help.

Logically, that would decrease the number of NQ and +1 items and greatly increase the number of +3 items. I think because the materials for the synths are not removed, only the end result, you can't really consider the item itself as leaving the economy, only the action of synthing it. Because you could desynth and resynth endlessly, you would therefore end up with huge stockpiles of +2 and +3 weapons instead of huge stockpiles of NQ and +1 ...

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Originally Posted by origamikitsune

I put off actively leveling gathering jobs because I don't need them right now. My LS gives me so many mats, its ridiculous. This. Does. Not. Mean. I. Am. Using. Them. I find it offensive that you suggest as much. I am lucky enough to...

It doesn't matter what OTHER jobs you have. What matters is that an R50 is equal to an R50 of the same job. HOW they play is up to them.

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The story of every first-generation crafter ever. That's how you see yourself in your head, but that's sadly not how gathering works. When I gather, 75% of the items are materials that I use myself. 15% no one wants. 10% someone else wants. That's the reality of mining, so if you got to BS, GS, or ARM on someone else's ores, you leeched off them or they just didn't care because it was october and their inventory was a mess. That was no exchange of equal product. How's a friend helping you out of your silver earring and ring phase in goldsmithing, by giving you ALL of their silver ores? What are you giving them? Not gems. You're not a miner. Wind shards? I highly doubt it. Maybe some paltry fire shards then. What you probably gave them is your divine might as a crafter. A polished iron pickaxe. There. You're equals now! How about your iron phase in blacksmithing, did they give you 2500 iron ores? What, exactly, did you give them in return for that? A bladed lantern shield they could afford by selling a tenth of those ores? THANKS!

Botany may be different. Alch, carp, and weaver don't all use the same materials, so I can see a shell powwow working somewhat. Less now with the item-targetting updates.

If you leeched silver ores off a miner who was a blacksmith, you killed their R45-50 progress. Just flat-out took it from them.
If you leeched iron ores off a miner who was an armorer, you killed their R30-50 progress.
If you leeched iron ores off a blacksmith, they can't even be called a blacksmith really.
If you leeched gold products off a miner who was anything, they should own 80% of the profits that you ever land until you buy their share in you back out. The saddest town crafter is a R50 goldsmith with no miner. Or lucky if they got there on silver needles.

You can get iron off a miner who'se a goldsmith, but I still think that's a leech. That poor soul could use the money.

And as far as all R50s being equal, you're going to have to make that argument before we had a handful of first-gen town crafters try to posture with their pokemon ball collections. Hand of the Gods, I choose you to separate me from the herd of other crafters!

Desynthesis and product destruction is something you patch a broken system with. It's giving up outdated content as worthless and arguing that there's enough existing content to keep the game interesting. The game is way too young for "we don't really care any more" fail like that.

They need to cut production. They can cut production by giving town crafters absolutely no shot at multimillions with NQ product. Guarantee the number of crab bows drops by 90% if NQ products can't make HQ2 and 3 bows and if the only good a megalocrab shell NQ was for...is crab oil. Then you may think there will be a lot of NQ raw materials on the maket, but that's not how final products work. The only spam to final product is the final product. All of the materials probably wouldn't exist if you didn't insist on them en masse. Look at the ingredients for crab bows. Which of those mats would be in excess if carps didn't mass-produce crab bows? None.

They can try to cut production on the gathering side, but it won't help. Prices will just go up because most of you all don't gather. You mass-consume because that's how you compete, not because mass production exists inherently. You create those markets of mass production where none existed. Mass production is there for mass grinding on levels. Ornamental iron hammer heads that you know are going in the trash. Not crab bows that you spammed and now want them to be worth more than they can possibly ever be.

Desynth and thousandbows are simply poor ideas. They only encourage the problem, which is too many crafters grinding too many final products. Take their incentive to mass produce final products away. Any other solution only buys you time. It won't buy you a solution.

Is it so hard for you to believe that some people like helping each other out... for the sake of helping each other out? Or because it is just a nice thing to do? Because we're friends, and we find enjoyment out of making a social event for trading and swapping items? As weaver, especially at my level, I use cotton like no tomorrow. But that doesn't keep me from giving out stack after stack of bolls, thread, and cloth to people in my LS who can use them. And if I have shards or crystals, yes, I do give them away. Fire shards, wind shard, lightning shards. It doesn't matter. I enjoy fishing quite a bit, so I have a decent supply usually. When all they want are repairs, that is what I give them. Sometimes they give me ore to skill up on, in exchange for the nuggets or ingots that I output. It saves them time, and I get SP. When all they want is to be nice, and take satisfaction in helping someone for the sake of helping someone, that is what they get. Each person is different.

I for one quite enjoy playing in a game with so much camaraderie. Its *gasp* FUN. What a shocking concept. And that's the point. The game is supposed to be fun. Some people get their fun in a different way. That doesn't make them any less of a player. It just makes them a different player.

As for dsynthing, I make no claims to it being THE solution, or the ONLY solution to the fact that finished products do not leave the market. But the ability to make parts or finished items into basic mats might help, especially if they can be used for grinding.

I do happen to agree with you one point however. The best solution presented so far, for the immediate situation, is to work out the kinks in the HQ system - particularly by limiting the HQ output to HQ mats, and by reducing the randomness of HQing at low quality.

This does a couple things:
It enforces the importance of gatherers, which I believe DOES need to be improved. It also prevents a glut in the market for HQ items which some people might argue hasn't happened yet, but it will happen over time if it hasn't already.

But this does not prevent a glut in the market for NQ items. Which, granted, might not be a bad thing because it makes NQ items readily available to casual players. SE has made it pretty clear that they want casual players to feel the game is accessible and playable to them, and keeping prices low on NQ items, I imagine, would be preferable (especially since the options for gear are so limited - in some cases there is only ONE item of a given type for a particular level of a given job).

So yeah.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

That's the reality of mining, so if you got to BS, GS, or ARM on someone else's ores, you leeched off them or they just didn't care because it was october and their inventory was a mess. That was no exchange of equal product. How's a friend helping you out of your silver earring and ring phase in goldsmithing, by giving you ALL of their silver ores? What are you giving them? Not gems. You're not a miner. Wind shards? I highly doubt it. Maybe some paltry fire shards then. What you probably gave them is your divine might as a crafter. A polished iron pickaxe. There. You're equals now! How about your iron phase in blacksmithing, did they give you 2500 iron ores? What, exactly, did you give them in return for that? A bladed lantern shield they could afford by selling a tenth of those ores? THANKS!

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Are you considering the possibility that a lot of people don't care about their exchanges being monetarily equivalent? That maybe some people want to give stuff away to their friends because they are...friends?

I give away shards and mats to my friends all the time. Even in the early days when shards were worth a lot more than they are now. I could have over 50 million gil now if I had just kept everything to myself, but I don't care. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

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Originally Posted by Solipse

Right. This is penalizing people for playing the game - something almost every review and negative association of 14 talks about. The fatigue system in general penalizes you increasingly more the more you play. For players to feel proud about items they possess, they can't be 'throw away' items that you don't care if they don't last a week. If nothing lasts more than a week, then there is little to no reason to spend more than the minimal effort on acquiring those items.

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I was just reading this article, and that made me think about the issue of items not leaving the economy.

http://funingames.net/2011/01/the-economy-of-wow/

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Everything in EVE is a consumable. Missiles and Ammo are spent in the usual manner of course, but ships and all their modules can be destroyed.
You are more or less able to expect a constant demand for any item you can imagine because once they’re produced and enter the economy; they’re not there forever as in the case of BoE items in WoW where you can only ever sell one of a given type per character. They can be destroyed and end up in need of replacing as a result.

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What if the introduction of airships was turned into an EVE-like environment where PVP is allowed and airships can be freely built and destroyed? You'd have good ol' carebear (not that that's a bad thing, I prefer the overworld be non-PVP) on land, and free-for-alls in the sky. Crafters could generate ammo and make repairs to airships in real time. The economy for airship parts would be crazy.

Of course, this wouldn't really fix any of the problems that we currently have, but it's nice to dream.

Just 2 quick obvious questions to this proposal.

1.Why would anyone bother to craft and sell any NQ items for profit if HQ materials guaranteed 100% HQ items?(I guess only for people who whored the rank up andover stock)

2. Wouldn't It completely destroy the NQ market?