Some thoughts on gil: Being poor, being rich, and everything in between.

Long post is long! There's a TL:DR at the bottom.

So I had part of this written up as a reply to another post, and with the current trend on the forums I could have put it in any number of threads. I figured it would be more beneficial here, however. My first "new thread that is actually just a reply to another". Yay! Everyone gets one, right? Right (I'm known to be wrong on occasion. Right? Right.)

Now, you might not want to hear this but... People are poor due to lack of effort, unwise spending, or both. There's no invisible force that's saying "thou shalt not maketh thy gil!" that is holding you down and preventing you from earning gil. Well, maybe it's invisible, but it's not in the game. And it certainly doesn't use ye olde timey speak (maybe it does?) So where is it? It's in you! Yes you, sitting there in a fancy business suit sipping your fine wine. And you, guy who is brushing cheeto crumbs out of your beard, down onto your sweat pants and time-worn beanbag chair. And everyone in between. Especially the ones in between.

If you put effort into making gil, you will make gil. Not "might" make gil. Not "maybe" make gil. Absolutely 100%, if you put forth an effort and actually try to make gil, you will make gil. That's not to say you will make hundreds of millions of gil, and if you do it won't be fast. But you won't be stuck with the 250k or less that you get from doing your story quests. You'll make more than enough to get by comfortably and purchase some luxury items you didn't have before. If you choose to hold on to it and not spend it as soon as you get it, you'll only see your gil grow. First a million, then two million, then three million, etc. It might not come fast, but it will come. If you keep at it, you can be one of those people with tens of millions of gil. But it will take effort for sure, and money won't just fall into your lap.

"But if everyone does this, then nobody will actually make any money."

Well yes, that's true. If everyone on the server is all trying to make gil, that gil just gets shuffled around and nobody actually makes anything. But that's the thing: Not everyone will do it. Why? People are inherently lazy, and as soon as they see the work required, they will quit and give up, going back to simply spending and not taking the time to make money. This is exactly what is going on now in fact, and what goes on in the vast majority of MMOs. It even applies to real life. Most people make just enough to get by, and they leave it at that. Not many actually try to make more.

"There's very little gil being generated into the economy!"

Correct! But there are a lot of people out there generating it, and it all adds up very fast. This is where the above comment about people not actively trying to make gil comes into play. Even with little gil generation, there are still people earning tens of millions or more, simply because they're taking the time to make money while the majority aren't. This is how you can end up with "that guy" who is sitting on a mountain of gil. He's rich because people make him rich. You essentially make him richer by not trying to be rich yourself. He's making all of the gil that you could be making yourself, if you were to try to make it.

"What do I do to actually make gil?"

Well, that one is up to you really, and that's where a large part of the effort comes into play. You need to actually find what's profitable or not. Despite what some may think, there is always something to profit on. The market is huge, and there's always a demand for something that somebody isn't supplying. That's up to you to fill in the blanks and give people what they want.

"I don't have a lot of time to play."

Time is money friend! Naturally someone who plays all day can make more money than someone who gets 30 minutes a day, but that doesn't mean you can't still make money. Luckily for you, having lower playtime generally means less expenses and need for gil in general, so you're still going to come out ahead.

"This is a game, not a job."

Entirely true. It's a game, and games are meant to be fun. But understand that your version of fun might not equate to ending up with a Scrooge McDuck style swimming pool filled to the brim with golden coins. Effort = reward, and you don't need to put in the effort. But you're also not going to get the reward. That's just how it goes.

TL:DR for those who want it: If you try to make gil, you will make gil. If you don't try to make gil, you probably won't. Simple as that!

Im far from being poor (4.5 mil) but that was due to 1.0. Now in 2.0> it has become steadily harder to make gil and now since the patch announcement, pockets have become tight sealed and people are undercutting prices at a loss to make gil back up! Take Astral rings for instance, last weekend they were selling for 500-600k now it has tanked to i think 177k~! That is really a economy killer!

My crafter is just a novelty item now.

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Originally Posted by Atheena

My crafter is just a novelty item now.

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Hopefully new housing stuff will eventually perk crafting back up (you know, once somebody actually has a house to furnish).

I make the majority of my gil via crafting myself, and I've never crafted a single 2 star item. I've always found that they sell far too slowly for the amount of profit they give. Economies could be vastly different however, so my methods aren't guaranteed to work elsewhere.

That has been the issue. We have been trading Gil since launch but very little Gil has been introduced.

500K or so per character.

How you made gil in 2.0: Run WP and sell tomestone mats
How you will make gil in 2.1: see above.

it's time to start gathering those allagan pieces from the dungeons.

im almost 50 on all jobs and all i have is 20K in my pocket, teleports costs cover all my income so i hardly get past this mark...

I know how to make money and make plenty of it.... Unfortunately I have poor priorities and spending habits. No one to blame but myself. Maybe a house will motivate me lol. But then I'll spend it all on plush moogles and chocobos... Life imitating game imitating life?
http://cdn.guildwork.net/albums/imag...6df1001942.jpg

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Originally Posted by Reiterpallasch

Hopefully new housing stuff will eventually perk crafting back up (you know, once somebody actually has a house to furnish).

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Why are people on the forum clinging to this? I keep seeing it over and over. Do people really think that guilds that are able to get enough money for housing do not at the very least have one person crafting? The guild crafter is going to make the guild furniture. There are going to be so few houses available anyway that people will scramble to undercut each other regardless if you do go outside the guild to look for it.

My problem with a lot of the "just make gil" talk is that people that have money are basing this off how they made money in the past. I've been 50 in all crafts for a long time, the amount of money I can make now versus the amount of money I could make 2 months ago is leagues apart. I feel real pity for any of the crafters who didn't get in from the ground up on something on a server as they have to fight tooth and nail for the scraps.

Why also does everyone seem to think that the 1% are going to be interested in dumping the majority of their cash in a house with marginal benifits? The rich got rich because they were smart, took advantage of situations early on and are not foolishly throwing money away.

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Originally Posted by Gabbelgak

Why are people on the forum clinging to this?

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The key word in what I wrote there was "eventually". As in eventually prices will go down, personal housing will eventually come out, there will eventually be many houses, and they will eventually need to be furnished.

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Originally Posted by Gabbelgak

My problem with a lot of the "just make gil" talk is that people that have money are basing this off how they made money in the past. I've been 50 in all crafts for a long time, the amount of money I can make now versus the amount of money I could make 2 months ago is leagues apart.

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Right, but what I'm saying is that people are making money now. They're making money with crafting now. They're making money with gathering now. Pure DoW/M people are making money now. I myself can still make a few hundred k per day if I put my mind to it, and I'm doing it now. In the past I made more. But I'm still making money, and I'm doing it now.

People like to bring up 2 star items a lot, but those were just "get rich quick" items. Their time lasted a while, but that time has come and gone. They're just a handful of items among thousands and thousands of potential profitable ones. 100k+ per item is profit, but so is 1k per item. I'm just trying to inform people that you can still make money if you work at it. A little money isn't a lot of money, but it's a lot more money than no money at all.

I Agree 110% with this this thread OP's post. Couldn't of said it better myself. Mostly people just complain its hard. The moment you ask them what they did to try to make gil, they'll come up with every single excuse in the book NOT to give you a direct answer. They don't want to put in the effort.

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Originally Posted by Reiterpallasch

Right, but what I'm saying is that people are making money now. They're making money with crafting now. They're making money with gathering now. Pure DoW/M people are making money now. I myself can still make a few hundred k per day if I put my mind to it, and I'm doing it now. In the past I made more. But I'm still making money, and I'm doing it now.

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Yes, but the gil gained from those is mostly gil that is already circulating in the economy, housing is going to take a lot of that out.
With less gil in circulation it's going to be harder to make a decent profit, especially if people keep undercutting the hel out of items just to make sure "it sells fast".

Last week alone I had to adjust the prices of items 3 to 4 times and the only reason I didn't sell at a loss was because I gather all the materials myself.
And I expect that's only going to get worse.

I sincerely hope SE has put thought into compensating for that, otherwise even I foresee some dire consequences for the game's economy and I generally am pretty positive about it.

A lot of BS here. If you've play any game economy, a lot of the gill is made early on in the market volatility. After it stabilizes it's much harder as margins are 20% of what they once were. EG potash used to sell for 80k now is 16k on my server.

Just because you were able to play the economy on easy mode early stages doesn't mean that method is available to players now. You were just grandfathered in. Enjoy it but dont' delude yourself in thinking you outskill the rest of us poor folk because you had a totally different market environment than the rest of us.

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Originally Posted by Shirai

Yes, but the gil gained from those is mostly gil that is already circulating in the economy, housing is going to take a lot of that out.
With less gil in circulation it's going to be harder to make a decent profit, especially if people keep undercutting the hel out of items just to make sure "it sells fast".

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From what I understand, the initial prices were put it place based on gil circulating within certain server economies. As the housing system removes gil from the economy, they should adjust values to compensate. This should make housing more affordable. Since it becomes more affordable, more people buy, more gil is removed, and thus the prices get lowered again to compensate for it. How often they choose to do that is beyond me though, and I don't suspect it will be all that often.

This means a couple of things. On one hand, people who buy early will be doing so at an increased cost which removes a significant amount of gil from the economy. However, for those who don't choose to buy a house retain their gil. The numerical value of their gil doesn't change, but its spending power does. As money is removed from the economy and the price of everything drops, the "value" of their gil gradually increases. Those people essentially make money simply by not spending it at all.

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Originally Posted by bob13bob

EG potash used to sell for 80k now is 16k on my server.

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If you sell potash for 80k, you just earned 80k. Sweet! If you only sell it for 16k, you just made 16k, which is still 16k more than you had. Still sweet if you ask me. Not as sweet, but sweet nonetheless. As for your other point:

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Originally Posted by bob13bob

Just because you were able to play the economy on easy mode early stages doesn't mean that method is available to players now.

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While you do have a point in that people made a lot of money early on, it is mentioned how there are still multiple viable ways to make gil currently. Current as in I ended my day today with more gil than I started.

I'm in agreement. While being poor in real life isn't always a choice, you have no reason to be poor in Final Fantasy. Everything that you can kill drops something you can sell. Wanderer's Palace and Ampador Keep both have enemies that poop money. NPCs will literally hand you cash (and other things) if you take 5 minutes out of your time to use your leves. There are a lot of gil sources but nobody even looks at them. How do you think RMT's get all their money? All I hear from people are complaints about how hard gil is to get, but let me share a little secret about good design. Money should have a value. Value is made by making someone work for it.

What saddens me is that they are INCREASING Gil gains in all dungeons and leves and people will still complain it's too hard to get Gil. I'll go back to my mountain of gil now (soon to be 2 mountains on 2 characters) thank you for listening.

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Originally Posted by MichiKyou

How you made gil in 2.0: Run WP and sell tomestone mats
How you will make gil in 2.1: see above.

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Problem is, with new myth cap why buy crafted ilvl 70 when you can get ilvl 90 at a piece per week? Those who cap per week (ignoring coil) will have 1500 philo tomes saved for getting their own tomestone mats or just getting 2-3 pieces of DL and saving gil to put towards housing, plus a piece of ilvl 80 from CT.

Also with the FC housing prices, wont most be hoarding every gil to try and save enough to buy a FC house, not giving it to another through purchasing.

More and more will be doing what you have said so supply is going to VASTLY outweigh the demand and lead to even less value on the tomestone mats. Thus if you do manage to sell them before being undercut your profit margin is going to take a massive hit in relation to pre housing prices being shown. Not to mention crafts will require less mats so demand is going to drop with that also.

Philosophy mats are going to tank for sure, and will pretty much just be a nice "bonus" at the end of doing a dungeon. It wouldn't surprise me if they eventually become less than the gil gained during the dungeon itself. That being said, you're still making money with it, even if it's not a lot. It just won't be a great way to do it anymore. People think that something needs to sell for 10s of thousands of gil to make a profit, but even a few k here is more than you started with.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Also with the FC housing prices, wont most be hoarding every gil to try and save enough to buy a FC house, not giving it to another through purchasing.

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I myself will be hoarding until I can comfortably buy a house without making too big of a dent in my gil. As I wait, they should become more affordable anyways so it's worth it more in the long run. I'm sure some people though will spend every last gil they have the second they can buy a house, and then wonder why they have no money.

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While you do have a point in that people made a lot of money early on, it is mentioned how there are still multiple viable ways to make gil currently. Current as in I ended my day today with more gil than I started.

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And how many of these days will it take before you can buy a house?

simple fix all future gear crafter only, if not we will continue to see no money coming in. 1.0 was crafter only till its late days and it had a strong economy.
SE now has the game setup to trash all gil not move it around.

It's pretty easy since the patch. I've made about 300k this week without even really trying to straight up farm gil.

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Originally Posted by bob13bob

A lot of BS here. If you've play any game economy, a lot of the gill is made early on in the market volatility. After it stabilizes it's much harder as margins are 20% of what they once were. EG potash used to sell for 80k now is 16k on my server.

Just because you were able to play the economy on easy mode early stages doesn't mean that method is available to players now. You were just grandfathered in. Enjoy it but dont' delude yourself in thinking you outskill the rest of us poor folk because you had a totally different market environment than the rest of us.

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THIS. My bf made 8mil being the first leatherworker on our server and I made 4mil breaking down items he made for me and selling the materia early on.

We're stagnant now.

Anyone who still thinks they are going to release personal housing (other than an instanced inn room) is extremely gullible.

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Originally Posted by Dreadlockrasta

Anyone who still thinks they are going to release personal housing (other than an instanced inn room) is extremely gullible.

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Actually.... (BRB with Link)

EDIT: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1685344

This line in particular, near the bottom.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Personal Housing

While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

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Yes but what is affordable to Yoshi-P? He also said that the FC Houses were affordable for fcs and we've all seen those prices. Personally I have very little hope of even the small plot with the worst view being under a million.

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Originally Posted by ispano

Actually.... (BRB with Link)

EDIT: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1685344

This line in particular, near the bottom.

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Please look forward to 30 mil for your one bedroom instanced apartment.

Legacy players, your first born.

2.1 has actually increased my profits, I've made around 400k without even trying this week. As the OP said you just have to get out there and find a way to make it.

Non legacy player here, 2mil gil, have been below 1k before.. Accumulating wealth in this game is meaningless, I don't know why people would grind currency in this game. Repairs cost nothing, food buff persists after death, crafting gear is obsolete, there is nothing that people need to spend gil on. So if you mention money woes or brag about having x millions, I think you should rethink your priorities in the game.

Yes you can have 10+ million gil, but...so what? What can you do with that gil? Absolutely nothing meaningful besides min/maxing a few stat point with Rank IV materia (which is largely unnecessary extravagance). If you're into personal housing and virtual interior decorations why don't you just play the Sims or one of the many flash applications on Facebook that allow you to play pretend dollhouse like a grown up?

edit: I don't craft, I only have alchemy at 50 and I spent gil to level it. I don't need anything crafted ever, but even if I did, there are hordes of people on my server I can get to make it HQ, while only tipping them some measly 10-20k gil, which takes about an hour to make from running Duty Roulette/Finder. No point in leveling any other crafting professions since everything is already offered at a decent price on the server. Furthermore I have 100 Allowances just sitting there rotting away.

If you think you need gil, you just need to play the game. Crafting the Relic precursor is the only 'mandatory' expense.

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Originally Posted by bob13bob

And how many of these days will it take before you can buy a house?

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At the current rate I make gil? Assuming I'm starting from 0 (gil I would be putting towards a house, not my current gil), about a month. That's on Hyperion, where they are 20m. That's excluding the fact that the price will drop during that time, and that I'd essentially be buying a FC house by myself. Now, will I buy a house at that price? No way. I'd rather sit on my gil and just wait it out until they are far cheaper.

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Originally Posted by Archona

Accumulating wealth in this game is meaningless, I don't know why people would grind currency in this game. -snip- Yes you can have 10+ million gil, but...so what? What can you do with that gil?

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It's shiny! But really, they could add any number of things to the game to spend gil on at any time (they just did this with housing). Gil might not be used much now, but that can easily change.

I for one would prefer to be the guy with hundreds of millions instead of hundreds of thousands.

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Originally Posted by Reiterpallasch

It's shiny! But really, they could add any number of things to the game to spend gil on at any time (they just did this with housing). Gil might not be used much now, but that can easily change.

I for one would prefer to be the guy with hundreds of millions instead of hundreds of thousands.

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Short of adding a Black Market Auction House a la Mists of Pandaria where you can buy Coil drops or extravagant vanity items, I don't know what they could add that would warrant amassing large amounts of gil. Personal housing will be cheaper than FC housing, both of which are superfluous and have no effect on gameplay whatsoever. FC housing is expensed by the FC, not personally and again, entirely just unnecessary. Again, if I'm gonna invite you over to my virtual house, there are other programs that facilitate this already. But then again I'm probably more rational about these things than most people, who as you mentioned -- "Shiny!!!!"