Open Suggestions for increasing trade

Opportunities to make gil are low and feels like its getting lower. In addition there are less active buyers. The overall loss of demand has caused goods to be worth next to nothing.

I would like to stress that undercutting is not the problem. It is the process in which the price of a good shifts so that the supply equals the new demand. As demand decreases the price of the supplied good will also decrease. When demand is increasing you'll find undercutters to miss-out because, for example even if you set the prices to 5% higher than the lowest price it will still sell as there are more buyers than sellers. Since our pool of buyers/transactions is shrinking, sellers undercut to "catch" the few buyers available.

People just don't buy as much as they used to, and there are not as much people anymore. Yet there are more lv 50 crafters/gatheres/producers. Our marketplace is simply facing a lack of trade/buyers.

So dear readers, how do we make it so people will buy more stuff?

My suggestion:
1. No more omnicrafting. With ilvl 90 crafted gear coming, please make it so our characters can only specialize in one or two craft classes for 3 star crafts.
2. Useful craftable consumables.
3. New recipes use existing gathered/crafted components. We have tons of gathered items available useful for only 1 recipe, most only have a transaction every 3 days. (Ex. Dart Frog)
4. Some sort of Crafting Dailies Hand-In.... But in a more fun and rewarding way than our chore-like leves.

Excuse me while I ramble to get these thoughts out, who knows maybe it will help SE at some point. Anyways here goes...

@OP, While I understand your view on undercutting. The real problem is that there is too much supply and not enough demand. It takes maybe 10 minutes or less to gather a stack of nearly any material on a high level gatherer. It seems like once I put that stack on the market for the same price as the person ahead of me, I sit there for the next few days watching people undercut my matched price and "re-matching" theirs just so it will hopefully sell.

SE has some serious restructuring to do on the market boards and supply and demand. The Economy is pretty messed up right now and with how much everything else costs to get such as housing or vendor item prices, the amount of gil being made from general gil sources is no where near enough to meet OUR demands. I hated world of warcraft, but I think SE should look to that game for tips on how to let us generate income, they have a really good auction design and gear sells for a fairly decent amount (or atleast it did when I played Wow, may have changed now though).

Anywho, as far as RMT go, we can't just take away gil making sources purely because they'll abuse it. Like I said in a previous post on another thread, gathered materials once had a sell price higher than 1 gil to vendor, much like fish do, and yes RMT may have used that for gil. But they'll do ANYTHING for gil, so no gil making source is safe. So what do you do? Take out money entirely!? Close off all gil making sources!? No, you remove the RMT aggressively. Use any means to eradicate them. SE has done a great job removing RMT thus far but I think they can still improve and streamline their processes. (but thats a point for another thread) Back to what I was saying, I hope they'll consider bringing back the original sell pricing for gathered items so folks who don't craft have some means of making gil besides quests, dailies and praying their stuff sells at the market. (and Yes I know treasure maps are good too, but I believe most FC's use it to make money for housing/furniture, so at the moment its not a major source of personal income for many)

The 'too much supply and not enough demand' is definitely what I think is going on.

There is not enough Gil in circulation. People have been saying this would happen for months, but the introduction of housing has sped up the process. Whatever Gil is in players' hands is being saved for housing. Can anyone seriously say that there's no link between the housing being introduced and the crash in prices?

Blame the lack of profitability in the markets on what you will; RMT, Undercutting, multi crafting. They are just convenient diversions from the real issue, and that is there still aren't enough Gil sources to supply the kind of prices that people want to charge for their wares. For so long as people cannot reconcile what they earn with what they spend, then it is only going to get worse.

SE has already stated that the economy is not their top priority. prices will be sky high on new crafts coming off of patch 2.2. Then when it gets closer to 2.3 they will be dirt cheap much like they are now. This is what they expected 2.1-2.2 to be, and it is what 2.2-2.3 will be.

Sadly i don't find much use for making gil these days. If you think about it what is really the only thing to spend gil on. Houses, thats it. gear can be easily obtained now and with 2.2 caps being removed i70 goes straight out the window basically. Unless they make some of the gear BiS for i90s this gear will not sell for crap anyways, except to the soft-core players that cant complete some coils.

There is plenty to spend gil on. Not everyone crafts, so alot of people still require gil for materia, low-level gear, food and consumables, etc. If you do craft, alot of folks still require gil to buy certain mats they themselves may not be able to get, also, repairs at 50 take their toll.
For example, I have about 50k and after buying food for coil runs and repairs (sometimes in excess of 1k), I find my 50k now dwindling to 45k, and I expect that will eventually fall to 40k and so on. I have gathering classes but since I'm ALWAYS undercut I cant seem to make enough money to reconcile what I must spend, so it is becoming a vicious cycle with no gain.

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

My suggestion:
1. No more omnicrafting. With ilvl 90 crafted gear coming, please make it so our characters can only specialize in one or two craft classes for 3 star crafts.
2. Useful craftable consumables.

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#1. Agreed. I do like the crafting system where mastering all crafts can make you a master craftsman/woman, but at the same time it makes it so that everyone that put in the time can make everything. Maybe it should be made that you choose a specialty, then some really good recipes are unlocked for that specialty.

#2. Agreed. Alchemy right now feels pretty useless other than the cross-class skills obtained. There might be one or two recipes that high end guilds use (like Mega-Vit potions), but that's about it. For Culinarians, we don't have the stats yet to maximize on the high level food's potential stat gains.

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

My suggestion:
3. New recipes use existing gathered/crafted components. We have tons of gathered items available useful for only 1 recipe, most only have a transaction every 3 days. (Ex. Dart Frog)
4. Some sort of Crafting Dailies Hand-In.... But in a more fun and rewarding way than our chore-like leves.

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#3. The difficult part is that good gear is easily obtained through dungeons of all levels. If the restrictions on materia melding were lifted a little, demand for crafted gear with melding would increase. Maybe adding recipes that use materia could be good as well.

#4. Technically they exist already in the Grand Company Provisioning missions. The problem is that you are rewarded only with GC seals and experience, which in turn are relatively useless at the higher levels. It would be nice if there were level 50 leves that required non-star level 46+ items that reward a decent amount of gil.

When you think about how things work in the real world, it sort of doesn't make sense the way things are at the moment. We are experiencing what you might call a 'Square Enix enforced recession'.

In this game, any and all Gil that you spend (aside from face to face trades with other players) includes a percentage of Gil that is destroyed by the mechanics of the game. If you buy an item from a vendor for example, then 100% of that Gil is destroyed, never to re-enter the economy ever again. If you spend Gil on the marketplace, up to 10% of the trade goes towards tax. Again, the Gil is destroyed and will never re-enter the economy.

This directly contradicts what we know is true about real world economics. Shopkeepers sell items but they buy stock, therefore the money keeps moving along, however NPC vendors are just an exit point for Gil. Governments tax sales in the real world, so while they stockpile currency, the currency still exists and can still be spent. In this game, all tax revenues are destroyed.

This causes a significant problem. In order for the economy to remain functional, the sum of all Gill spent received and kept by players must equal the sum of all Gil both in circulation, and entering the game, be that through quests, sales to vendor, or new players etc. I can guarantee that when the new players stop coming (they are already slowing down), then the economy will crash unless SE think up ways of balancing the Gil leaving the game with the Gil entering the game. And to cap it all off, players are expected to save millions of Gil for housing, if they want a house. So players who do have Gil are not spending it.

I liken the current flow of Gil to a swimming pool with a massive hole in it. If the pool is losing 1000 litres an hour, then a simple hosepipe isn't going to stop it from drying out. You could chuck in an extra bucket or two of water (new players and their Gil), but ultimately the pool will still be empty in a week or two.

So SE do not want massive stockpiles of Gil, and I understand that. However, they can not then justify extortionately large prices for housing because it is causing a detrimental effect to the economy. The very mechanism that would allow people to stockpile Gil is unfortunately the very mechanism that is needed to keep the economy alive. The game needs more Gil fountains to balance out the Gil sinks. In the real world, people can earn money to spend by doing their respective jobs, but in this game the only realistic way to 'earn' Gil is to craft and sell. Imagine a world where everyone was a shopkeeper! Yes that is ridiculous isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Sparky

In this game, any and all Gil that you spend (aside from face to face trades with other players) includes a percentage of Gil that is destroyed by the mechanics of the game. If you buy an item from a vendor for example, then 100% of that Gil is destroyed, never to re-enter the economy ever again. If you spend Gil on the marketplace, up to 10% of the trade goes towards tax. Again, the Gil is destroyed and will never re-enter the economy.

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If you're comparing the game to real-world economy, then you might be forgetting about the minting process within the game. Gil is minted when you vendor trash something, kill mobs in higher level dungeons (AK for example), participating in a fate, completing quests, the list goes on. The high housing prices aren't exactly a detrimental effect on the economy, they're just a way to remove stockpiled money that had no intention of re-entering the economy anyways.

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Originally Posted by itschowda

The high housing prices aren't exactly a detrimental effect on the economy, they're just a way to remove stockpiled money that had no intention of re-entering the economy anyways.

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But they have become detrimental, as the stockpiled money has quickly run out or is being shoved into FC chests for those FC's that still have yet to buy a house. The gil is still not making its way back into players hands effectively. If it was these threads regarding gil would not be popping up as frequently.

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Originally Posted by itschowda

If you're comparing the game to real-world economy, then you might be forgetting about the minting process within the game. Gil is minted when you vendor trash something, kill mobs in higher level dungeons (AK for example), participating in a fate, completing quests, the list goes on. The high housing prices aren't exactly a detrimental effect on the economy, they're just a way to remove stockpiled money that had no intention of re-entering the economy anyways.

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We aren't just talking about a few tens of thousands of Gil here. We're talking tens of millions of Gil if not a few hundred million, that people are not planning on spending on anything else but housing. If you can think of any reasons why that would not be detrimental to the economy, then I think we'd all be very interested to hear them.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

I liken the current flow of Gil to a swimming pool with a massive hole in it. If the pool is losing 1000 litres an hour, then a simple hosepipe isn't going to stop it from drying out. You could chuck in an extra bucket or two of water (new players and their Gil), but ultimately the pool will still be empty in a week or two.

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I like this analogy.

I can appreciate the Dev's for seperating dungeons and combat from the economy... But it be nice to have the market to be a funner thing to participate in. If the game branches out into dungeon/combat in one branch then crafters/markets in the other. It feels like one is much more nurtured than the other, however as a whole it makes game mediocre. I am really just looking at more ways to have fun in FFXIV and get the enjoyment in every aspect of the game.

If combat/dungeons is independent on crafting why is crafting still dependent on combat/dungeons?

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

My suggestion:
1. No more omnicrafting. With ilvl 90 crafted gear coming, please make it so our characters can only specialize in one or two craft classes for 3 star crafts.
2. Useful craftable consumables.
3. New recipes use existing gathered/crafted components. We have tons of gathered items available useful for only 1 recipe, most only have a transaction every 3 days. (Ex. Dart Frog)
4. Some sort of Crafting Dailies Hand-In.... But in a more fun and rewarding way than our chore-like leves.

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For number 1 IMHO, it should not happen, as players then will have multiple characters for crafting, the suggested limitation will not be benefitcal to crafters. Moreover, if this happens, i think our fighting classes would have the same limitation as well, finally we need relogon another character to change job. I really like this game that we can only concentrate on one character, believe that retainers were designed to serve the same purpose.

@ Nicobo, I think what CurrySonic is saying is that from now on, we should only be able to specialize one of our level 50 crafting classes so it alone can make 3-star items. Right now we only have 2 star items but if you have all crafts leveled you can make everything, and if you have all gathering classes maxed you never want for mats unless you are lazy. If CurrySonic's suggestion was implemented it would make it so people had a reason to buy from other people. In the future I think this would be nice to see.

Not gonna retype everything, but here's my suggestion that I posted in another thread:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1878235

The basic problem is that most people don't need the crafted gear, even when leveling. Sure crafted gear can be "consumed" to make materia, but endgame gear has no use for materia. How to fix it? Well read the above link. (TL;DR version: make it so we can attach materia to everything, but subject to the same materia rules we have now)

Questions:

1. Would you support increasing the gil earned from leves and quests by a multiplier, and by what value would be ideal? Ex: (current) x 1.5

2. Do you believe that past lv.45-47 that there should be no NPC venders for normal quality (NQ) wares, that there should be NPC venders for NQ, or none at all?

3. Would a price hike on NPC wares help get more players purchasing wares on the Market Board?

4. Would you k=like to see much larger FC-only housing or FC-run shopping (Like Malls) with purchasable storefronts? Note: this is an "or" question so you can say both.

5. Should current housing prices be cut in half?

6. Would more non-combat craftables, not aimed at high-wealth players, with some use to player be welcomed? ex: a customisable bike mount that requires replacement parts after a while, but gives you no aggro while using the mount.

MPNZ, I certainly think point 2 is viable - getting rid of vendor obtainable gear from 45-47 would make players think a little more about their gear-path towards iLVL 55 and beyond. Maybe this will allow people to start thinking of crafted gear at later levels for what it really is at present - a stepping stone, a kind of a mid tier towards the high item levels. It would certainly increase the demand for one and two star crafted items.

But I guess this would not work. The forums would be inundated with people complaining that the only way to gear up towards level 50 is from craftables. SE are damned if they do something about crafting, damned if they don't. No matter what happens, there will be whining from somewhere.

1. I would support something like this, not sure what the best multiplier would be but I get the general idea. The value of 1 gil has gone way up perhaps by making gil less scarce people will feel less scared to spend it. Though this may have no hope of passing due to RMT concerns... Do people actually buy gil in this game anyways? I mean what do you need like 1000k for?

3. I definitely think so. Especially on items like raw materials. Unfortunately, again, once something might get alot of need and is profitable Bots will be all over that just like they are with shards. On the flip side gathered materials doesn't have crazy demand anyways for bots to avoid super saturating the market.

4. I think I may be missing something, but I don't see the point considering the market board kinda consolidates all sales and buys on a server. If anything I think FC's should have their own FC retainer so they can participate on a market board as a FC, with the proceeds going into the FC chest.

5. No. The price will naturally be cut in half anyways. I don't think cutting it half straight away or decreasing its "devaluation period"/half-life is fair the to people who bought houses already.

6. I'd be all over more craftable minions or clothes, rich or not.

I definitely think that making Gil less scarce is something which ought to be considered. Of course you'll get the usual arguments such as "This isnt WoW, look at the inflation in that game". But what people need to realise that yes prices will inflate, but there would be greater capacity to spend, and therefore greater capacity to earn.

Then there will be those who say that more Gil in the economy will encourage more RMT... yeah, like they are reaaally dissuaded at the moment right? If anything, things would be more favourable for RMT if they stayed the way they are.

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

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4. I think I may be missing something, but I don't see the point considering the market board kinda consolidates all sales and buys on a server. If anything I think FC's should have their own FC retainer so they can participate on a market board as a FC, with the proceeds going into the FC chest.

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On mall: Part of it stems from some concerns from a conversation I had with someone over worrying that they might be contributing to RMT services if they bought something off of the market board, and a part of it is me wanting to expand player experiences and markets. The MB would be for individual gain while the mall would work for FC's to compete with each other with their wares, which would be crafted items. You could have it with unique features like selling pre-arranged sets of gear, and display the items on mannequins. You could make restraunts and cafe's too. Personally I think it would be fun to see what the players would come up with. A little redundancy wouldn't be too bad, but your suggestion is much more feesable. They should add a symbol, or use a different but readable color for the FC retainer's font.

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Originally Posted by MPNZ

On mall: Part of it stems from some concerns from a conversation I had with someone over worrying that they might be contributing to RMT services if they bought something off of the market board, and a part of it is me wanting to expand player experiences and markets. The MB would be for individual gain while the mall would work for FC's to compete with each other with their wares, which would be crafted items.

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Ah ok. I kinda get what you are getting at now. Yeah I do share that sentiment about not wanting to inadvertently contribute to RMT. Like that time I had to buy more fire shards, but didn't want to get the cheapest one since it was OBVIOUSLY supplied by a RMT retainer (2000 shards times 15 stacks for the same retainer? Obviously not human). I am ashamed to say I caved in though >_>

RMT selling things at discount rates isn't a bad thing. In the case of shards, they're actually HELPING by keeping the universal manufacturing costs to a minimum. It's an artificial suppression, yes, but it's compensating for Sqeenix's blazing ineptness for balancing shard production vs consumption for levelling crafters.

What's bad about RMT is the other end of the process, but ultimately, that falls on the desperate idiot on the other end keeping them in business.

So.. in the larger scale of things, the RMT market is keeping shard prices modestly affordable. Shards were meant to be a bit of a throttle on how fast crafters can craft, but with leve material rewards (pre-supplied ingredients, good shard rewards) having been demolished in 2.0, RMT is providing a net service in the long run.

I would rather have an ever-increasing block list than 100 gil fire shards.

Honestly there is only one way way to fix the market in this game. Remove 99% of all noncrafted gear from the game. If that can not be done than make sure that crafted gear is better than drop gear.

In my opinion there is only one way to fix markets, crafting, gil making ecc...: remove allagan tomstones. Noncrafted gear is much better and easier to obtain. Why should i become crazy to craft a lvl 70 hat when i need 2 and a half days to obtain 495myth for a lvl 90 hat?

Apologies if this was already suggested. I think it would be helpful if they implemented a feature where we could use alternate ingredients in recipes. For example, using a higher level material a lower level recipe (perhaps for a quality bonus), or having more material options to make glamour prisms. This would definitely help demand for the surplus of luminary spam materials currently on the market (cobalt comes to mind).

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

Opportunities to make gil are low and feels like its getting lower. ... Our marketplace is simply facing a lack of trade/buyers.

So dear readers, how do we make it so people will buy more stuff?

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MAJOR market system revamp. This current system is useless, most items are worth less then sh*t because the game gives better items out for free, and it lacks required functions to support a full functioning market.

I will write up about this in a new thread sometime this weekend. (edit)

jc

Update since 2.2

Honestly I feel things are a lot better now with extra spending money people have from roulette and bonus's! I'm really happy with things right now. Guess there are simply ups and downs just like the real world.

No insane inflation either! Pretty happy

Showing the amount it's listed for is dumb, imo.

"Oh this item is listed for X amount of gil? I'll just list mine 1 gil cheaper herpaderp.." And the next 15 people follow suit..

So then you spend spend the next several days watching the price plummet to over half what it was when you listed yours. Awesome idea!

I understand supply and demand, but price gouging isn't the answer either. Some things here in Malboro are way out of hand. Needed 1 piece of white coral which can't be bought anywhere except the market. Go there and everyone has 99 pieces starting at 15k, yeah well I won't buy that. Just went and took up fishing, was much cheaper. When I had excess white coral I went and sold it for a reasonable price, needless to say was way undercutting the prices that were there. Sold in less than 1 minute after it went up.

I think people need to realize that most people do not want 99 pieces of something. Maybe its just this server I don't know, but there are tons of things on the market like that.

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Originally Posted by Eye_Gore

...I think people need to realize that most people do not want 99 pieces of something. Maybe its just this server I don't know, but there are tons of things on the market like that.

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Sellers calulate overhead for each slot of listing, let say he earns total $2K for 99pc, he will still want to earn 2k for 1pc if it takes one slot or just dispose it to npc. ^^;

I have a couple of thoughts.

How about having crafted items with same/similar stats be available a level or 2 earlier. While it isn't a major difference, for those that want to keep their gear in tip-top shape will buy off the market, since you'd get it earlier, but those who don't want to spend the money can get it 'normal' ways the level or two later. Either way, during leveling the slight level delay isn't going to hurt for balancing.

You could also add an extra random modifier for crafted items. You create a sword, maybe it gets an extra bit of strength or dexterity, whatever is appropriate for the particular item. I know this is what materia does, but how many times have you actually bought items that had materia on them already.

(cont. next post)

When we get to selling ingredients gathered though, the first thing they need to do is add a buy partial stack system. Whether it is because you only need a certain amount or that you only have the money for a certain amount I would say that buying 99 of anything at once isn't all that useful. Also, they need to put in a minimum price that cannot be lowered any further. I really don't know why anyone, besides RMTs/bots would put things up for less than what you can get by just going over to any merchant and clicking sell.

(cont 3rd post)

Lastly, I know I'll probably be considered weird, but I liked the way FFXI had done their auctionhouce, in the way that it was blind. The auction/waiting part was annoying, but it hampered the insane undercut mentality, since you didn't know what others have put it up for, just what people had bought it for. It also made the prices seem more stable, really only huge influx or shortages changed prices and that was usually only temporary. While I'm not advocating going to that system, I'm sure that there are some things there that can work to make FF:XIV's marketplace work better.

(end) :D:cool:

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Originally Posted by Dapliran

... the first thing they need to do is add a buy partial stack system.... they need to put in a minimum price that cannot be lowered any further...

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Will it be better to repalce MB by a NPC reselling all the item sold from players? Free quantity and fixed price.

There is always a minimum price, 1G... I am quite sure something will be listed for 0G if it is possible.
As some players selling their useless item for almost free as for helping others who need the item.

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Originally Posted by CurrySonic

My suggestion:
1. No more omnicrafting. With ilvl 90 crafted gear coming, please make it so our characters can only specialize in one or two craft classes for 3 star crafts.
.....

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IMO this suggestion is irrelevant, many pro-crafters have multiple characters, "no omnicrafting" only resulting every pro-crafters to make ALT for different craftings. This is just like saying if no omniBattleJob, everyone pro-players will have ALT for different jobs.

However, it seems that SE already forget they YoshiP said you can have everything on a single character previously,
as they are going to make item desynthesis similar to FF11 crafting, only can master it in one job.
I foresee after a few patch, Novus+3 will be something that impoosible to have it for 2 jobs and will be the veryBiS,
so everyone will automatically have only one best fighting job.

In short, I object the idea "no-omni jobs" as it conflcts with the idea YoshiP brought to us previously.